Mags' Heir
by thankyoufinnick
Summary: Johanna Mason's never been one to care what other people think, so why should she respect Finnick's wishes, if ignoring them means saving his life?
1. Chapter 1

[A/N]: This is an alternate ending to Mags' War. It presupposes you've read all 400,000 words of Mags' Weapon and Mags' War, in that order. I make no promises you will understand what's going on if you haven't.

If you've made it this far, Mags' Heir is an AU that diverges from Mags' War right before the final scene. If you've read Mags' War, I know you're thanking me for this.

* * *

When Annie gets in the car, Cashmere's eyes are wide and she's biting her lip. Annie waits, letting Cashmere get comfortable deciding how to open. The kids are in the back looking fine, so at least it's not them. Maggie knows Annie doesn't like talking in the car, but she's young. If it's important, she'll speak up.

Once Cashmere's pulled out into traffic and they're stuck behind a line of other cars, Cashmere says, staring straight ahead, "Johanna showed up."

Annie gasps, and she presses her fist to her mouth, biting back tears. Finnick's gone, then. It was kind of Johanna to come break the news in person.

 _It's like the end of an era._

"We went to the park this afternoon," Cashmere recounts, "and when we got home...well, as soon as we came in the door, Johanna said, 'I changed my mind. We're not letting Finnick die.' Now Finnick's sacked out on our couch, and he's so unresponsive I can't get a reaction out of him."

Annie jolts forward until the seatbelt automatically tightens around her. "Finnick's here?!" She must have heard wrong.

"Barely. You'll see."

Too distracted to remember to be tense about being in the car, Annie stares out the window at rush hour and tries to absorb this new development. Is this better or worse? What's Johanna doing? Not that Annie wants Finnick to die, but she thought there was a plan and everyone was on board with it.

"How did they even get in?" Cashmere wonders. "Not that I'd put it past Johanna to break and enter. By the time I got home, she'd already rearranged our whole living room—you'll see."

"I gave Finnick a key," Annie tells her. "Two years ago. I didn't think he'd ever use it, but it was the only thing I had to give him."

She remembers him blinking hard as he clenched his hand around it.

Annie hugs the kids automatically as soon as they get out of the car, but at the front door, she shushes them and asks them to wait a few minutes.

The first thing Annie notices when she opens the door is the sound: ragged, rasping breaths, punctuated by coughs. The second is Johanna, pacing up and down the hall. When she looks at Annie, her eyes blaze.

The third is that Annie no longer recognizes her own living room.

The fourth puts them together. The rasping is coming from near the window. The couch is near the window now.

Annie comes over to Finnick and brushes her lips against his temple. She tries not to shudder at the way the skin is drawn taut over his skull, and she puts a hand on his shoulder. Finnick doesn't react. Breathe in, breathe out.

Quickly, she takes in the scene. Maggie and Evan want attention, Johanna's here on a mission, Finnick's dying, and Cashmere's reverted to waiting for someone to tell her what to do.

"Honeybee, why don't you sit with Finnick while you watch the kids? No matter what's going to happen now, I know he treasures every minute with you. I'm going to start dinner, and Johanna and I are going to talk. Maggie, yes, I want to hear about your day, I promise. But first I have to take care of some adult business, and then you can tell me everything."

Without speaking directly to either Finnick or Johanna, Annie squeezes Finnick's thin shoulder briefly, then walks toward the kitchen, knowing Johanna will follow.

In the kitchen, she pulls down her cookbook from the shelf and flips to the soup section, looking for something she can make from the ingredients she has on hand. Okay, there's a big bag of lentils she can dig into that will be more than enough to feed everyone. Then it's just a matter of going through the fridge and spice rack and finding things to give it taste and substance.

"So you changed your mind?" Annie begins, briskly, as she pulls out an onion. A little limp, but it'll do. Garlic powder and pepper from the spice rack, but nothing too heavy for Evan's little stomach. Carrots.

"There's surgery," Johanna begins, defiant. "There's oxygen. There are options. The problem isn't that he doesn't want to live, it's that he's tired and it would take too much work to get his body back into a condition where he could enjoy life again. But he could. So I'll do it, if he's too tired."

Maggie comes running in and grabs Annie around the leg. "Mama, I-"

Gently but firmly, Annie pries her off. "If you're sick or hurt, Mummy's in the living room. Otherwise, you're going to be respectful of other people's time and you're going to give me a few minutes. You're a big girl, you know how to tell time. When the clock says six ten, then I'll hear about your day. Do you understand?"

Maggie pouts. "Yes, Mama."

"Why don't you go show Finnick your new puzzle? I don't think he's seen it."

"But I-"

"No."

With that, Annie starts chopping the onion on the cutting board, showing she means business. She looks back at Johanna and nods for her to continue.

Deflated, Maggie wanders off.

"There's no decent medical care on our side of the world, so here we are. I hope you don't mind putting him up." From someone else, that might be a friendly way of finding out if their unexpected arrival is an inconvenience. From Johanna to Annie, it's a dry _You don't have a choice, but here's your chance to pick a fight if you want to._

When Annie doesn't respond, Johanna continues, "I'll solve all the medical problems, all you have to do is give him a place to sleep. I'll sleep outside if you want."

Annie ignores that little dig. "I thought he had made his decision to die on his own terms, and we were going to respect that."

"He's not making decisions any more," Johanna says dismissively. "He abdicated all that and said I could do whatever I wanted."

Annie's eyes narrow. This doesn't sound good, not at all. "Did you take his nightlock pills away from him?"

"Nope, still in his pocket. He could have interrupted this process at any time, but he let me drag him halfway around the world without a murmur. My job is to make living easier than dying."

Well, that's promising, at least. Johanna's in such a position of power over Finnick right now that taking those pills away would have been an act of abuse in Annie's eyes. Still, as sympathetic as she is to the impulse to protect Finnick, she doesn't like the attitude. "Despite the promise we all made to help make dying as easy as possible on him?"

"Uh huh. That's where the changing my mind comes in." Johanna's chin is set in intractable lines.

Annie starts the lentils boiling on the stove. She's going to set a milder version aside for Evan, and let the rest simmer longer with seasoning.

"You licensed to drive in this country?" she asks, chopping carrots. "Or are you expecting Cashmere to do that? We're kind of out in the suburbs, and we only have one driver in this household."

"Look," Johanna says condescendingly, "I used to drive logs down a river with my pole, and the injury rate on drives was—ridiculous. I've driven lumber trucks. Military jeeps. I'll figure it out. I might want to borrow the car occasionally, if it's not too much trouble."

Again, the words are right, but it's taking an effort for Annie not to match her tone of voice. Reminding herself that one of them can be an adult about this, she answers pleasantly, "It sits in the driveway most of the day, so you're welcome to. Meanwhile, we're a bit short on bedrooms, but you're welcome to sleep on whatever floor or couch space you find. There's plenty of spare bedding. You're also welcome to eat whatever we're eating, but if he has special dietary needs and you have the money to help out with that, it would be great."

"Deal. I wouldn't have brought him out to the suburbs at all, except that the exchange rate is awful, and while we have some money between the two of us, if we're paying his medical bills, it'll be easier if we're not also paying rent. And by easy I mean possible. Last time we stayed a few days in a hotel, and all we—he—got was a few examinations, no treatment."

Annie's observant enough to catch the slip. So Johanna has, or had, medical problems too. Well, not surprising. It makes Annie soften toward her a little. "You're welcome to stay," she repeats. "But you yell at my kids once, or you lay a hand on them, or scare them, and you're out. Finnick can stay."

"Fine."

In the living room, Finnick and Cashmere are sitting on the couch, her arm around his shoulders. Opposite them, Maggie is kneeling at the coffee table, where her 50-piece jigsaw puzzle is spread out, partially assembled. Cashmere's helping her with it.

Evan is sitting on the rug, playing with his stuffed tiger and alphabet blocks.

Annie joins them and hears about everyone's day. She lets Maggie come sit on her lap, and she pitches in from time to time with the jigsaw.

The lentils are simmering and softening on the stove. It would be the perfect evening, if Finnick were half as engaged as Mags was when she couldn't talk. From the occasional flicker of his eyes, Annie can tell he's watching and listening, but he's not joining in at all. The old Finnick would, at the very least, have been pointing at a puzzle piece on the coffee table and showing Maggie where he thinks it goes. And nudging Johanna to get her to say the things he can't.

Annie can see why Johanna's scared. She can also see why Finnick, if this is how he feels, would rather be dead.

For dinner, she has Johanna join her and the kids at the table so she can quiz Johanna about Finnick's diet. She suggests Cashmere stay with Finnick, and she brings them soup and rolls on a tray. Cashmere looks as frightened as Annie feels, but she flashes a grateful smile when Annie presses her hand reassuringly.

At the kitchen table, Annie and Johanna argue.

"He doesn't need more protection," Annie insists. "He needs to get the message that what he wants matters. He'll be the first to say that he's been protected."

"Yeah, but to hear him tell it, that expired when he was fourteen or something." Johanna rolls her eyes. "For years now, he's gone around insisting that if he's ever in trouble, he's to be left to his own devices because he's, and I quote, 'the protector, not the protected.'"

Annie's eyebrows fly up. _Okay, that's bad._ She realizes with a jolt that Johanna must know Finnick far better than she does now. "I see. Has he been getting what he wants for the last couple years, at least?"

Johanna snorts. "You mean other than the part where he's dying? If he asks for it, he gets it. But if you know him, you know that list is short."

Annie does. "What has he asked for, lately?"

"About what you'd expect. Touch. Attention. Heat. Water, if only in the bath. Since his health has seriously declined, looking out the window. Food that isn't bland, as you know."

"Did the recipes help?" Annie asks. She doesn't want to sidetrack the discussion, but she desperately needs to feel like she made some sort of difference.

Johanna shrugs. "He doesn't talk a lot about food, but when he still had the energy, he spent some time tweaking them, and then when I took over, he trained me on his tastes."

"Oh, good, he gets to have tastes. What else?"

Johanna hesitates. "I'm not sure how to describe this. Being taken care of? But in very subtle ways. He won't ask for it, but if you put a blanket around his shoulders, things like that, he looks happier."

Annie nods. That sounds familiar. If he's been letting himself accept it more often, that's something. "I think we can provide that, then."

"That's not why I brought him here," Johanna insists.

"I know. But he'll be in good hands meanwhile." Annie's still planning to prod a bit and find out if medical care is going to help or hurt, but she does think that more attention can only help.

* * *

Johanna's first breakthrough on the medical front is simply a generic checkup, with an opportunity to talk to the physician about existing health problems. Finnick doesn't say anything.

Casually, Annie observes, "If nothing else, if we find out about any nutritional deficiencies he may have, that'll give me a better idea of what to cook for him."

Finnick doesn't react, but when, right before she leaves for work the morning of the appointment, Annie asks if she should call and cancel it, he shakes his head.

The test results come back the next day with a vitamin D deficiency, and Johanna and Annie put together a shopping list.

"I don't mind driving them," Cashmere says quietly to Annie in the bathroom the next morning, helping Evan brush his teeth.

Annie shakes her head. "Johanna needs something to do."

Cashmere can understand that. So once Maggie's at school and Annie's been dropped off at work, Cashmere takes Johanna out. They stop first at a driving school and pick up some reading materials to get her started. Then, on the way to the grocery store, Johanna quizzes Cashmere on what she's doing.

"What's that for? What does that do? Why did you wait so long to turn? The way was clear."

The constant questioning makes Cashmere feel like she must be doing something wrong, like she's about to fail out, but she reminds herself that this isn't the academy, and students are allowed to ask questions. It doesn't mean Johanna's criticizing her. Even if Johanna's smarter and knows it.

She's nervous around Johanna at the best of times, but Annie says this is important, and there isn't anything Cashmere wouldn't do for Finnick.

"I drove trucks back in Panem," Johanna tells her, "but in remote areas, and the controls here look pretty different."

Cashmere remembers driving a train, but says nothing, because the controls were almost fully automated, so it doesn't count. This car is the first machine she's ever operated with this many manual components.

In the store, Cashmere puts Evan in the shopping cart while Johanna pulls out the shopping list she and Annie put together last night.

Johanna marvels at the selection. "If I wanted anything like this back home without making it myself, I'd have to barter for someone to cook for me. Pre-cooked pasta with sauce, meat, and cheese, really?"

"Yes," Cashmere tells her, "most of the research in this country goes into making food easier."

"I don't know whether to call everyone here lazy, or efficient. Must save a lot of time." Johanna pulls a box of pancake mix off the shelf and shakes her head. "Is there anything you can't get here? I haven't seen anything like this since the Capitol."

"Annie mostly complains about bananas and cinnamon. Uh—for Finnick, would nutrition shakes be useful?" Cashmere hazards. When Johanna gives her a blank look, she explains, "We had them at the academy, and I know Two did too. I don't know if they're any good if you're sick."

"I'm not a doctor, but I suppose if we came all the way here to find the good doctors, I'll put that on my list of questions. Show me what you have here that I've never heard of, then."

When they get to the milk section, Johanna sighs. "Milk was always one of those things he would drink to stay alive, but since we're iffy on whether staying alive is still his goal, let's make this as pleasant on him as we can. I don't suppose there's vitamin D in those shakes?"

"I'm not sure," Cashmere says, feeling again like she failed a test. Then she tries, "Does he like orange juice?"

"Dunno," Johanna answers. "You try getting oranges where we were. If by some miracle any came through, we ate them, peel and all. We didn't do anything fancy with them."

Annie might know, but she's at home with the kids. Cashmere still does the shopping.

On a gamble, Johanna picks out the fortified orange juice. "If not, the kids'll drink it," Cashmere tells her. "We don't often get it, because milk is cheaper, but they love it as a treat. I always get the fortified kind for them. That's how I knew it existed."

Annie goes through the bags and helps put things away when they get home. "Oh, good, orange juice with vitamin D. He'll love that."

Johanna and Cashmere share a small, conspiratorial smile of relief.

* * *

But when Johanna's alone with Annie in the kitchen, she says in a low, stunned whisper, "He weighs less than I do."

Annie's heart surges in response to Johanna's pain, and Finnick's. At Johanna's brief gesture at her body, she takes a good look, and nods. Annie's height, but quite a bit thinner. Finnick ought to weigh fifty pounds more than Johanna.

"He's not eating?" Annie says softly. Not really a question.

"Well, he hardly has time to chew between breaths. But even when it's something he likes and can eat, he eats a bit and then says he's tired. I haven't been pushing it, because—but..."

Annie understands. How do you take care of someone who wants to be left to die in peace, even if they've said straight out they don't want to die?

"I'm not going to push him," Annie says. "But no matter what he decides in the end, I'll try to make things that aren't a chore for him meanwhile."

It's easier because Finnick's basically not a picky eater, but when Johanna says he's been tired of seafood for a while now, Annie's surprised but can't blame him. So with a large chunk of her recipes ruled out, Annie spends more time than usual flipping through her cookbooks.

The kids are pickier, especially Evan, who's only known a few months of privation and doesn't remember it. Maggie's learning too. "I don't want peaches!"

Evan joins in with the opposite cry. "I want peaches!"

It's a challenge Annie finds interesting. She likes having hobbies that are different from her day job, which is one reason she was more interested in home improvements after she switched her job from handyworker to electrician.

Johanna doesn't notice the food enough to complain. She only alternates between frantic activity, and hovering protectively by the arm of Finnick's couch.

Annie never confronts her for time alone with Finnick, just slips in sometimes when Johanna's busy elsewhere. Finnick never makes much of an effort to communicate, but somehow Annie senses that he needs occasional attention from her.

He's consistent about taking up the entire couch with his legs. Only Cashmere's allowed into his space and into his arms. Annie and Johanna perch on the arm behind him, where they can stroke his hair or put a hand on his shoulder.

He doesn't react when she joins him, one way or the other, until one day Annie drops something onto his lap. It takes him by surprise, and he opens his eyes to get a good look at it.

It's soft and brown, matted and torn. It's her old fur coat.

Finnick smiles a little, running his fingers through the fur.

"I was never able to get it back into anything like its original condition. But then, you know it was always a comfort object for me."

Finnick accepts the comfort object and tucks it up against the back of the couch, where he can rest his cheek against it. Annie puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Listen. I know you have a relationship with Johanna now, and I'm not going to interfere. If she's making the decision to live easier for you, and that's what you want, I'll help any way I can. But if she's defying your wishes and you're too tired to put up a fight, just let me know."

In answer, Finnick slides his hand into his pocket and slides it out just long enough for her to see a small bag of pills.

"She told me. But if you want to be left alone until you're ready, I'll make sure you are. Otherwise, I'm just going to carry on feeding you and making sure everyone in this house gets along."

At that, Finnick pats the back of her hand once in thanks.

Annie understands. "Yes, don't worry about keeping the peace with Johanna. I can manage that."

She waits, but he doesn't say anything about needing an ally, so she sighs and lets that go. She starts thinking about what else he might need. When she's lying in bed, when she's cooking, on her way to work, Annie's thinking about Finnick and trying to figure out what's going on in his head. And she comes up with some ideas.

Now she's kicking herself for not challenging him the last time he was here, when he was willing to talk. Though he seemed so sure that he was doing the right thing, and he asked her not to fight him, so of course she didn't. And then he left so quickly, before she had time to piece together what he might have needed to hear from her.

So she finds him again when everyone else is out, and runs her fingers through his hair while he nestles against her fur coat.

"Listen. Finnick." Annie wishes now that they had more endearments between them, but they were always navigating around his time as a commodity in the Capitol, and trying to carve out something for themselves that wasn't that. "I know I said I moved on, but you have a place in my heart, always. That doesn't change, no matter what else does."

That isn't the part he needs to hear, quite, but it's important to Annie to say it, and she's building up to the next part, the part she's rehearsed.

"You're welcome on my couch for as long as it's comfortable. If all you do is snuggle with Cashmere and eat my cooking...well, I've been enjoying cooking for you and fussing over you. You wouldn't have to be dying for it to be okay. I wouldn't mind doing it under better circumstances. I never got to before, because you were moving too fast to slow down, and I was in no condition to take care of anyone the way I wanted to."

Annie's not sure, without any feedback from him, how explicit she should be. _You don't have to solve problems. Stay here where there are no problems to solve. Stop feeling guilty about resting. Stop dreading getting more energy if Johanna has her way._

But something tells her to take it slow. He can't make a leap like that. She remembers when she used to try to get him to stop ignoring his own desires during sex, and she had to start by giving him orders. Counterintuitive, but it worked. So today she's making this about what she wants.

Annie holds her breath, waiting for an answer that isn't going to come. But he's sitting very still under her hands, and Annie can hear him thinking about it. She dares one more step.

"If you ended up back on your feet, you wouldn't have to do anything you're not doing now. It's your turn to be the one taken care of. Indefinitely."

Annie cries in her bed that night. Silently, not wanting to disturb anyone else. He needs to talk to someone, but his lungs won't let him get out the words for so complex a topic as death. Johanna says he can still manage isolated words or short phrases, and does occasionally with her. The fact that he doesn't with anyone else says a lot about his mental state. Not being able to talk is making him feel worse, and the worse he feels, the less he makes the effort to engage.

There's no therapist she can send him to. All she can do is try to guess at what he needs to hear, and trust to his relationship with Johanna.

* * *

It's the middle of the night, and Johanna's sitting on the kitchen floor, wide awake. She was heating up some soup for Finnick, who naps during the day and somehow gets through each night alone and awake.

But suddenly she sank to the floor, overcome by the weight of self-doubt. Stunned, she simply sits there, a chill in the pit of her stomach telling her she's gotten everything wrong.

Since they got here, Johanna has been calling hospitals, quizzing staff, and reading up on everything she can find. She's been preparing the medical front like a campaign, planning to ease the way so that all Finnick has to do is let himself be guided through the process of recovery by someone who knows what they're doing and has the tenacity of a bulldog.

But now that she knows what she'd be getting him in for, she can see why Finnick opted out of treatment the first time around. He said something at the time about how difficult it would be, and how there was no total cure, but from a distance, it was easy to dismiss those reasons. Just needs Johanna-level determination.

This, though...this shit is hardcore. Just the prep for surgery is insane. The appointments, the tests, the other treatments that have to be tried first. Then the twelve-hour surgery, and the one-to-three week hospital stay while you gradually relearn to eat solid food, walk, and have tubes removed from your body one by one until you no longer look like a robot.

Then, oh but then, it gets serious! Breathing exercises every few _minutes_. No long naps on the couch during the day. Physical therapy. Appointments five days a week for months. More medications than Johanna's ever heard of anyone taking at once, even victors. A compromised immune system for the rest of your life, to keep your body from rejecting the foreign lungs.

And if all goes well, you might live a few more months, a year, three years. If you make it to five years, you're doing great. Lung transplants are not like other transplants, it turns out.

She had imagined that having her here, taking him to appointments, reminding him to take his meds, etc., would make the process easier. But now she sees in the pamphlets that the recovery from surgery is so drastically difficult that the hospital won't even give you a transplant unless you have a dedicated caretaker. What she'd been thinking of as a significant contribution on her part would be no more than the bare minimum necessary to make any progress at all.

Now what? Has she dragged him halfway around the world, in his condition and against his wishes, for nothing?

Should she go through with it to make the journey that was so hard on him worth it? Or should she swallow her pride, admit she made a mistake, and ask him if he'd rather die here or back home?

The next morning, Johanna swallows her pride enough to hand the most detailed of the pamphlets to Annie, and wait silently while Annie flips through it.

"Having second thoughts?" Annie asks, when she looks up. To her credit, she's not nasty about it the way Johanna would be.

"I knew he had good reasons for the choice he made, but I thought if he just had more support...but this is unbelievable."

To Johanna's surprise, Annie's less pessimistic. "Give him time. I know he doesn't have much time left, but give him time alone with Cashmere. In the worst case, it'll help ease him out of life. In the best case...well, I see him come to life a little more around her. She might be what he needs to tip the balance. It's not just his lungs," she adds. "He's clinically depressed. I can get you a pamphlet if you want to see the checklist."

 _Anyone would be._ Johanna's skeptical that Cashmere can do anything about this, but she has no reason not to go along with the suggestion, so she does. She's collected all the information she needs and gotten the referrals from the first physician he saw. She doesn't press Finnick yet, though. Instead she lets him soak in as much affection and good food as he can get, while she starts attacking the financial angle.

They've have been lucky, because their ascetic lifestyle in the mountains has allowed them to save quite a bit of money, but they're still going to need to supplement their savings.

Annie goes over her own savings and decides what she can afford to contribute. Johanna adds that number to her total and does some more math.

Then she applies for a work permit here, and starts fund-raising. Pearleye. Plutarch. Katniss. Peeta.

Yes, the first one is already sending pensions, but maybe for a war hero as visible as Finnick, there could be a little extra for wounds incurred in the war. It can't hurt to ask. And the last two...Johanna bares her teeth. It was already hard enough to arrive at a draft of Plutarch's letter that didn't begin "Remember putting nerve gas in the arena?" and she doesn't even _blame_ him. She did it, though, wrote very professionally, and she counts that a small victory. Anything is worth not hurting Finnick's chances.

Pearleye writes back that she stepped down from her position as soon as victory was declared, but that she has forwarded the request on to the powers that be. Johanna fucking knew that, but Pearleye's the one Finnick worked under. "You must have some influence left, use it!"

Plutarch is as forthcoming as she'd hoped. Until she has a commitment from Finnick to go through with the surgery, and she hasn't even broached the idea to him, Plutarch will refrain from sending actual money, but he does write saying that he's set aside the funds.

Katniss and Peeta send what little they say they can, but..."Yeah, yeah, fucking economy in East Panem. Cry me a bloody river."

As usual, Johanna's going to get a job and make it happen herself.

Finnick doesn't resist when she takes him to a specialist to get a recommendation. No treatment yet, just a bunch of examinations. As soon as she gets him home, she puts him to bed, grateful beyond words for his silent fortitude. If he's doing this at all, he's doing it for her, though some part of her hopes that he's hoping she can make this doable. Even now, she can see him not wanting to die.

Annie brings him ice cream in bed. Johanna considers yielding her place to Cashmere, but she can't bring herself to quite yet. She lies there beside Finnick, holding him and cradling him, using her hands in his hair and down his back to thank him without words, and to make silent promises that he's not alone. If he's still Finnick somewhere in there, then that's what he needs.

The next day she lets Cashmere join him in bed, while she goes and resumes her job hunt. She knows she has useful skills that translate anywhere, and the ability to pick up new ones quickly, but it's a matter of convincing interviewers of that. She has no work history here, but then again, when she started working the log drive, she not only had no history but was fighting an uphill battle against sharply drawn gender lines. At least here she's not told to her face that she can't do the work because she's a woman.

* * *

Finally the day comes when Johanna has an announcement at dinner.

"I got offered a trial period." She's buzzing with energy even through the tiredness. "Most hiring committees were wary of relying on my experience in Panem, but I got one who was willing to take a chance on me as manager."

"That's wonderful!" Annie enthuses. "What will you be doing?"

"I'll have a team of software developers reporting to me. I'll be in charge of making sure the projects get done on time and up to standards. I mean, I don't know anything about software, but they've got people for that, and I didn't know anything about trains or electricity or plumbing either. I just asked around until I found the people who did, and I got them to agree to do what they knew how to do, and I put them in touch with whoever they needed to be in touch with, and I checked up on them regularly and held them accountable for their progress. And that was with random people I found in the community, who I had no authority over, and who I wasn't paying. If I can do that, I can do this, easy. That's what I said in all my interviews. Finally found someone who believed it."

It's heartbreaking for Annie to watch Johanna trying not to let anyone see her glance quickly to the side to her partner of several years, who was always the first to sing her praises, and not get a reaction out of him. It's up to Annie, who barely knows her, to make up the difference.

"You'll be running the company in no time," Annie predicts. "I can't believe you've only been here six months and you're probably already making more than I am."

Johanna scrunches her nose. "Not quite. They're paying me less because of my lack of formal work experience, but they said that I can expect to double it in the next couple of years if I can walk the walk that I just talked."

"'Not quite' means 'almost', right?" Annie prods. When Johanna makes a face, allowing as how it does, Annie laughs. "You're amazing. We need to celebrate this. Come on, what's your favorite food? Or I'll bake a cake, whatever you want."

"You do realize why I got this job?" Beneath Johanna's condescension, Annie reads a fear that Finnick resents her insistence on paying medical bills he specifically asked not to incur. And fear that it'll all be for nothing.

But no matter how it affects Finnick, Annie wants to cheer Johanna on for her own accomplishments.

"Exactly," Annie tells her. "We need more reasons to celebrate."

"Well, where I come from," Johanna says scornfully, "there's no fanfare every time anyone does anything. You just get on with it." Then she jerks her head up, surprise on her face. "Finnick just kicked my ankle, so I guess we're celebrating." She hastily tries to conceal the relief she gave away. "Obviously he likes your cooking."

Annie, equally relieved, gives Finnick an approving look, then smiles at Johanna. "Mags would have poked you with her cane. And Finnick knows he gets my cooking any time, no need for an excuse. This is about you getting my cooking. Now when you figure out what you want, let me know, and I'll make it happen."

She makes not only food happen, but support. Annie asks a lot of questions, after the orientation before Johanna officially starts, her first day, her first week, her first month. She learns that geneticists are tackling the problem of how to grow crops more efficiently on this small island. Part of their approach involves software that can crunch a lot of numbers about genes. Someone has to write this software. And someone has to manage the people who write the software.

That someone is Johanna. "I'm not learning about software yet, though that's in the works, and I'm learning almost nothing about genetics. But there are procedures for testing the software, and prioritization meetings, and procedures for when something goes wrong, and the boring bits like making sure everyone clocks in on time and the employees who know how to do one aspect of the programming don't all take vacation at the same time."

Annie asks at first to be supportive, but she comes to be genuinely interested. Ayre is still very new to her, and even in Three, she never worked with software. She makes comparisons to her own job, the co-workers even more than the technical aspects, because people are people.

"I get eyerolls sometimes, but my co-workers have been surprisingly understanding. It's not like back home, where I got 'mad girl' comments all the time."

"No, it's not much like home," Johanna agrees. "When the developers on my team resent me, it's for the same reason they resent the male bosses: if you don't write code, you're not one of them. Some of them don't understand why us managers get paid more if they're the smart ones.

"Okay, sure, I don't understand what you do. But you're not very organized, and you have no handle on the bigger picture. Something catches your interest and you put your nose to the ground like a dog on a trail and ignore everything that'll actually get the product shipped on time. And you won't let go of your work until it's perfect, but nothing's ever perfect. So I have to declare a project finished and pry it from the cold, dead hands of the developers. And that takes a lot of judgment calls."

Annie nods. That all sounds very important. "Mags wanted me to do something like that for the rebellion. Management, as a civilian if I wasn't comfortable with military. But leaving aside the fact that when the time came, I still couldn't leave the house...I'm just better with my hands. I like people, probably more than you do-" Johanna snorts. "-But when I'm working, I just want to focus on what's in my hands. I have to watch out, because I get snappish if I'm interrupted while I'm concentrating, even by someone I like who's being perfectly reasonable. Cashmere can tell you all about that," she says with a wink and a smile at the door.

Cashmere's coming in from putting the kids to bed. "Maggie read _me_ a story tonight," she announces.

"Wow, good for her," Annie cheers. Even more than Maggie, though, she's cheering for Cashmere. Getting to put the kids to bed each night may be the single most healing part of her life, and Annie's so glad for her.

Cashmere smiles warmly at her. "And yes, I remember, but you told me not to take it personally. I try not to interrupt you, now that I know."

"And I try to remember that I'm just grouchy because I was concentrating, not because you did anything wrong, and I try to take a deep breath and not take it out on you." Annie had to learn quickly, because it kills her inside a little every Cashmere shrinks in on herself and starts apologizing for she doesn't know what.

"You don't any more," Cashmere assures her, mostly truthfully. She looks around the room, deciding where she's going to sit, and chooses to come sit at Annie's feet. They've put in a couple more chairs since Finnick arrived and monopolized the couch, but Cashmere's angling her head like she wants her hair played with.

Annie unbraids and rebraids her hair while they talk. "Didn't Nessa do something with crops and genetics?" Cashmere asks.

"Oh, that's right," Annie says. She stares at the floor while she tries to think. Nessa didn't talk much about work, not like Raych. "I don't think it was genetics. I think she was working on environmental conditions, like soil, for making them grow better. Anyway, we should invite her over." She explains to Johanna, "She and her wife were the ones who took us in when we first arrived."

Johanna makes a face and directs a pointed glance over at the couch. There's a reason Annie and Cashmere have stopped entertaining at home.

"Well, we'll see," Annie says. He seems to be sleeping, sitting up the way he mostly does, but with his breathing, it's hard to tell.

The one good thing is that, as far as Annie can tell, she gradually ceases being Finnick's substitute for Johanna in showing interest in her job. She and Johanna start to have a relationship of their own, even if it's just commiserating about bad days on the job and congratulating each other on good ones. Johanna stops looking for a reaction from Finnick when she brings home news, but at least she seems eager to share her daily updates when she and Annie get home.

"I got an ergonomic chair!"

Annie smiles at Johanna's enthusiastic announcement. Coming in from the car, she's carrying Evan, who missed her and wants cuddle time, and Maggie's running ahead because she was in the middle of something that she had to interrupt to go pick up Mama. Logistics are still complicated: Johanna's driving to and from work because she needs the practice, but there's only the one car, and Cashmere needs it during the day for errands, picking up any sick children, and Finnick's appointments.

So Cashmere still has to gather up the kids, drive to Johanna's office, get out of the driver's seat, and let Johanna drive to the pickup spot where Annie's waiting, then take them home. It's enough to make Annie start wondering if they should move into town, but she really, really doesn't want to, and it would be expensive. So would buying a second car. Better just to play musical chairs.

Cashmere unlocks the door, while Maggie bursts into the house and runs to her room, and Annie turns to Johanna. "Thanks for the ride. What's an ergonomic chair? Gently!" she says to Evan, who's pulling on her hair, and she loosens his little fist.

"Just a sec," Johanna answers. She pokes her head into the living room while Annie carries Evan into the kitchen. He seems to be coming out of the phase in which he was so excited that he could walk that he refused to be picked up, ever. Now he alternates between that and wanting attention more than he wants to be independent every minute of the day.

"Asleep," Johanna reports, returning. Annie's trying to shut her ears to the sound of rasping, and she clutches Evan to her chest, determined not to imagine what it would be like for every breath to be that painful. A lack of imagination has never been one of her shortcomings.

Evan squirms his protest. "Mama!"

"Sorry, baby," Annie says quickly, and sinks into a chair where he can sit on her lap. "Did you have a good day?"

"Me and Mummy sung songs. And Maggie was a bad girl!" he informs her with unbecoming delight.

"Oh, really? You know, it's not nice to sound so happy about that."

Evan screws up his face in a comic attempt to look sad, and Annie laughs. _Well, he's only three._

Once he gets all the one-on-one he wanted from her, Evan pulls off her lap with his usual attention span and runs off to more exciting activities.

Annie looks up at Johanna, who's pulled up a chair across from her, and she laughs. "Kids."

"Spawn," Johanna says agreeably, making Annie laugh. "An ergonomic chair, since you ask, is one that doesn't aggravate my back. I didn't know they existed, and I wouldn't have asked if I did. Asking for accommodations was a death sentence where I come from. But someone from the company came to visit the office today and went around asking everyone about their workstations. They have some idea that you're more productive if you're comfortable. So I ended up getting to pick out a better chair, and they're paying for it. Even though I'm still on a trial period."

"Strange new world," Annie agrees. "I got an accommodation of my own: while the company I work for will call most of us at home in case of a client with an emergency, I'm not on the on-call rotation list. I just can't. I can go out if I have a routine, but I can't hop in the car on no notice and head out. So I make less money than if I did off-hours work, but I consider that a good trade-off." She hesitates. "How is your back, if you don't mind my asking?"

Johanna gives a noncommittal grunt. "About as good as it's going to get, I guess. Of all the substances I've ever tried, the best trade-off so far is one that knocks me out at night, but doesn't leave me too groggy next morning. The pain ramps up throughout the day, but nothing I can't power through." She shrugs. "The doctors here want to micromanage my life in exchange for painkillers, but if I'm stuck visiting sawbones all the time anyway, might as well humor them and get a pill out of it. Even if their much vaunted 'superior medical system' can't come up with any improvements on this same painkiller I had in Panem. Let's hope they're better with lungs than pain, yeah?"

Annie's making a sympathetic face when Cashmere comes in, sees that they're talking, and looks around. "Do you need any help with dinner?"

"No, just resting a few minutes before I start," Annie tells her. "I've been on my feet all day." Then, looking at her wife more closely, she guesses that she wants to talk. "Well, since you're up, do you mind peeking in the slow cooker and telling me if it looks done?"

While Cashmere's leaning over the counter, Annie shoots a meaningful look at Johanna.

Johanna jumps to her feet. "I'm going to go...check on Finnick."

Then Annie walks over to the counter and puts her hand on Cashmere's arm. "Everything okay?"

"Maggie threw a tantrum earlier," Cashmere says softly, so that they can't be overheard from the living room. "She didn't want to come with me to pick you up."

"You mean you interrupted her in the middle of something and she yelled at you?" Annie says with exaggerated shock. "I don't know where she could have learned that."

Cashmere laughs a little. "But you don't yell, you just get impatient. And hardly ever." Then she grows serious again. "I didn't know what to do," she says, her head lowered. "I can't discipline children, I never know what to do, and even when you tell me what's appropriate, I can't do it without reliving every time I was made to feel like I was letting everyone down. And then I feel worse because I know that children do need discipline sometimes, and I'm not doing my part-"

Annie shakes her arm gently. "No, Cashmere! We've been over this. I'll handle the discipline. I don't like it either, but I can do it without having flashbacks. And what do you mean, not doing your part? You're the one who stays home with them, you're the one who gets up with them in the middle of the night so I can go to work rested, you're the one who drives them everywhere...Discipline is my part, just like cooking. Just tell me what she did and I'll decide what's appropriate. Did she hit you?"

"No, but she ran away, and I had to grab her and haul her to the car."

"All right," Annie says, "then I'll talk to her, and if she understands what she did wrong, then we'll leave it at that. If not, I'll decide."

Over dinner, Johanna is still raving about the wonders of ergonomics. "They just went around the room asking everyone what would suit them best! Two people even have standing desks. I couldn't, I need my back support, but if that's what floats your boat, that's what they get you."

"It's sure not Panem," Annie says.

"Hey, where's the other little fish spawn?" Johanna asks, finally noticing Maggie's absence at the table. "Is she being punished?"

Annie's temper flares. She raises her chin to look Johanna in the eye, and her hand actually tightens involuntarily around her knife. "Do you honestly think I would punish a child by depriving her of food?"

Johanna just shrugs. "Gran did. Forgot you guys were soft in Four."

"I spent my whole childhood afraid my family would stop thinking it was worth feeding me!" Annie has to count ten breaths before she can continue calmly. "You know who I want to punish with food deprivation? President Snow."

"Bastard's dead," Johanna informs her.

"It made the news here," Annie snaps back. "But just so we're clear, I will let Maggie go hungry over my dead body."

Johanna's unabashed. "Okay, so where is she?"

Annie glares a bit longer, then she lets herself cool down. "She's in her room working on a big secret project that we're not allowed to see until it's done. I told her that because I inconvenienced her earlier, I would make it up to her by letting her decide when she's ready to come to dinner. She's five. I imagine she'll be along soon."

Sure enough, only a couple minutes later, the sound of running feet can be heard in the hall. "I'm hungry!"

 _Told you,_ Annie mouths, and Cashmere turns her head to hide a smile.

"Mummy, Mama, look!" Maggie comes in brandishing a piece of paper and makes everyone look.

It's a credible drawing of a tower in colored pencils. "I made it with my sticky blocks," Maggie explains. "Then I drew what I made. You have to come see the real thing!"

"That's amazing," Cashmere tells her, craning her neck to inspect the paper on the table.

"Yes, and we'll come see what you built right after dinner," Annie promises.

"That's actually pretty decent," Johanna says. "For a five-year-old? That almost looks three-dimensional."

"She's showing talent," Cashmere says, "so they're teaching and encouraging her in art class. It's a good school."

"Architect in the making." Johanna looks approving.

"She can design our next house," Annie jokes, "and I can build and wire it. Evan, your job is to become a plumber, and then we're all set."

Evan looks up at his name, but the joke has gone over his head, so Annie just ruffles his hair while she serves Maggie.

After dinner, Maggie's rushing them all to go to her room to see her tower, when Annie signals Cashmere with her eyes to wait. "Maggie, what did we decide before dinner? What did you promise?"

"Oh, right." Reining in her impatience, Maggie turns to face Cashmere and clasps her hands behind her back. "I apologize for the in-con-ven-ience I caused you. Can I help you with something?"

"Apology accepted," Cashmere says with equal seriousness. "Do you want to help me clear the table and do the dishes now?"

Maggie sighs, seeing the great unveiling of her architectural wonder slip further away, but she accepts her fate. "Yes, Mummy."

"I could have yelled at her," Annie says quietly to Johanna, "but I always try talking to her first, and punishing her only if that doesn't work. So I told her, yes, if I didn't have an anxiety disorder, she wouldn't have to come pick me up every day. But if she's ever sick at school, she knows we're going to drop everything to come get her. So we agreed that I would make it up to her if she would make it up to Cashmere. I told her that we're family and we help each other out. Seems to have worked."

Glancing over at the table, she sees Maggie carefully balancing the plates she's carrying, and Cashmere sliding a chair into place so that the girl can reach the sink.

"Hmph," Johanna says. "I would have gotten a tougher lecture from Gran about being too old for that kind of behavior, but then again, I can't say her taming methods exactly worked."

Annie laughs. "Bear-taming is hard. But seriously, it's been good having you around. Good having a second driver, a pair of hands, everything."

"And I haven't eaten the fish spawn." Johanna sticks out her tongue. "Even though bears normally eat fish."

"Well, we're all still scared of you. But I want you to know you're welcome here."

Johanna nods briskly. "I'm going to go keep an eye on him. As soon as he wakes up, I'm pouncing on him and making him eat something."

"He's still not..."

Johanna makes a face. "Not enough. Not unless Cashmere knows something I don't know."

Annie shrugs. "You'd have to ask her. She spends the most time with him."

Only once Johanna has disappeared into the living room does Annie turn to the door she went through with narrowed eyes. _Did she run away the moment I started appreciating her?_

* * *

The first time Finnick held Cashmere after returning a wreck to her house, she was anxious about him, focused on the kids, and so very much the opposite of relaxed that the experience was nothing like what he missed. It just reinforced what he already knew, that he's falling apart, and nothing's enjoyable any more. Johanna's on a wild goose chase if she thinks she can get him back on his feet.

But with the passing of time, he and Cashmere have managed—almost—to recapture the state they used to fall into effortlessly, of being so wrapped up in each other that the rest of the world fades away. He can feel her pressing close, abandoning herself to the sensations of being enveloped by a body that knows hers, and he can feel himself doing the same.

The only barrier they run up against is that he's dying, and she's grieving, and they can't give each other the verbal comfort they used to. He'd always thought words were superfluous between them and they could communicate with their bodies, but now that words have been taken away, Finnick is realizing how much he took them for granted.

She won't talk because she doesn't know what he wants to hear or how he's reacting to what she's saying. And he won't talk because it's too tiring. A few words to her he might be able to physically manage, but then he's afraid he'll get pressured into communicating more with everyone, and get pushed to his limits again. It's much easier just to set expectations low while he prepares for a very long sleep.

It starts to become tantalizing, though. Holding her and almost being able to achieve joy again. Several times Finnick finds himself opening his mouth, preparing to murmur the litany of endearments that he knows would close the gap for both of them. It's all they need. They never asked much of each other.

Then he remembers, and he closes his mouth.

Finnick's been trying not to actively miss what he can't have, because missing life leads toward resentment and away from resignation. But in no universe will he ever push Cashmere away when she comes to him. He welcomes her with open arms every time, and he presses his cheek to her hair.

"Sweetheart," he breathes once. Fuck it. She won't tell. He'll never have to say anything again if he doesn't feel like it. She's the most undemanding person he's ever met. It takes so little to make her happy. Even now, he can feel her taking a deep, surprised breath and nestling closer to savor the moment.

She deserves so much better than this. And he deserves better than to have to sit here and miss her as much as she misses him. Annie says he can have this forever if he wants: good food and time with Cashmere. Johanna might be disappointed to lose her problem-solving partner, but won't she lose him just as much if he's dead? Maybe she can accept it if he just wants to stay here, where he can find rest and some simple comforts after a meteoric life.

He asks, once, just to confirm, when he and Annie are alone in the house. "I can stay?" he whispers. They're the first words he's spoken to her since arriving. It hurts, because he wants to say so many more.

"You can stay," Annie says. The touch of her hand between his shoulder blades is gentle. "Dying or not. No conditions."

Annie may tell polite lies to strangers and acquaintances, but between him and her there's always been an honesty that's sometimes painful but always reassuring. If she says she's happy to have him here indefinitely to feed and fuss over, then she means it.

So he doesn't ask Johanna how her medical research is going, but when she starts taking him to appointment after appointment, he goes. If he decides against treatment, no one will force him, not even Johanna. And if he decides it's worth it to buy more time with Cashmere, then it won't hurt to have endured test after test. Then if it stops being worth it, he'll still have his pills.

One day, he ends up in an education session on lung transplants. Johanna's tense beside him, because this is the place that really lays out how incredibly difficult the recovery process is, how strict your regimen is for the rest of your life, and how short the rest of your life may be regardless. There's no way to take this one day at a time, the way he's been doing. Either he commits to going through with the procedure, or he doesn't.

When the time comes, with the memory of Annie's reassurance, the promise of joy with Cashmere, and the protection of Johanna beside him, Finnick signs the paperwork. Paper after paper, acknowledging the risks, committing to the recovery process, and agreeing that he's making an informed decision.

He can see Johanna trembling in the car on the way back, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. She doesn't say anything, not wanting to push her luck, afraid of finding out that he doesn't really want to do this, and riddled with doubts. Knowing all this without a word, Finnick pulls her into his arms when they get home. "It's okay," he murmurs. "It's all right."

He still talks to her, sometimes.

* * *

[A/N]: See, I do love Finnick!


	2. Chapter 2

Annie takes the day of the surgery off work. Even though there's nothing she can do, even though it won't be over until the evening, even though Johanna is driving him and sitting in the waiting room and will bring home the news, she knows she won't be able to concentrate.

Instead, she and Cashmere play with the kids all day. They eat cold leftovers, and the housework goes largely undone. Annie shivers occasionally, and a stone-faced Cashmere puts her arms around her and hugs her every time. Cashmere's own emotions are buried deep, under a practiced mask.

"I'm going to jump out of my skin every time the phone rings," Annie predicts. It's only ten, and the clock is crawling.

Cashmere nods.

* * *

"Maybe I should take up biting my nails."

Johanna mutters out loud. The waiting room is too small for proper pacing, but she keeps getting up from her seat, walking over to the vending machine, staring at it without seeing anything, then going back to her seat.

She doesn't notice the other occupants of the room, except to be furious when a sudden noise startles her, but frustrated when it's too quiet, because in the quiet her thoughts are louder.

Eight to twelve hours of this? She will go mad. She can't concentrate enough to distract herself with reading or anything else. All she can do is hash over the same thoughts endlessly. Will he make it, will he hate her if he does, should she have respected his wishes? Maybe he didn't want to die alone and unconscious on the operating table, maybe he wanted to choose.

She realizes she's drumming her fingernails on the arm of her chair when the man to her left leans over the small table between them and starts to speak. She jerks her hand up self-consciously and clenches it into a fist, but he only says kindly, "Our daughter's in for liver tumor removal. You?"

"She's only eleven," a woman's voice adds softly from his other side.

Johanna swallows and looks over at them. The woman, who looks about Johanna's age, is leaning over to face her, her arm lying next to her husband's on the arm of his chair, with their hands wrapped together.

"Dual lung transplant," Johanna answers numbly. "My husband." Both parts of the answer sound equally unreal. He can't be in there in the hands of some stranger, nothing more than a slab of meat that's being cut open, nothing unique to Finnick Odair about him. And 'husband', that implies a whole romantic relationship that doesn't exist. _I just signed some paperwork so I could..._

She has trouble finishing that sentence. _Have legal rights. Visit him in the hospital. Make his medical decisions when he can't. Take care of him while he was dying. Move halfway across the world to try to save his life. Hold his hand through the long sleepless nights._

She can just hear Finnick laughing. _Yeah, nothing like a_ _real_ _marriage._

Then it occurs to her that she may never hear him laugh again, that she may have to live on memories that ended over a year ago, and Johanna bites her lip to force the lump in her throat back down.

The woman makes a sympathetic noise. "Cancer?"

"Nerve gas," Johanna hears herself answering before she can even think about it. It's like her mouth is making all the decisions while her brain just watches. "From the war."

"War?" the man asks.

"Panem, it sounds like," the woman whispers, and the light goes on in her husband's eyes.

"Sorry, didn't place the accent. If you don't want to talk about it, we understand."

She doesn't. She never does. Even at work, Johanna had a hell of a time telling her boss enough to get the leave of absence, and no one else has the story. But sitting in the waiting room is another world entirely. She has no way to take her mind off it by throwing herself into work that has easy, immediate solutions, where even the unsolvable problems aren't life-or-death.

Slowly, haltingly, they trade war stories. Her, of the arena and a revolution. Them, of watching a child decline and making the rounds of hospitals, the news going from bad to worse.

It's not even about passing the time. It's about staying sane while the hands of the clock on the wall drag themselves in slow, monotonous circles.

Eventually, someone comes out to speak to them, and Johanna's left sitting alone again while they visit their daughter. She never even learned their names, but they were her lifeline and she theirs during the endless wait.

Around four pm, nine hours after the surgery began, Johanna hears a voice saying her name. Wildly, she looks around, desperate for news, even bad news, but the voice is coming from behind her, not the door she's been watching like a hawk.

Annie comes around to sit beside her. She's carrying a paper bag. "I brought food. I was going crazy waiting, and I figured you weren't getting anything good here." Out of the bag she takes a couple containers with lids. "Potato salad. Fish. Two garlic rolls." She passes Johanna a fork wrapped in a napkin.

"Thanks. I've been living out of the vending machine. I haven't even dared to go downstairs to the cafeteria. What if someone came out and I wasn't here?"

"No news?" Annie asks.

"No news."

More ravenous than she'd realized, Johanna wolfs down the cold food gratefully. Annie sits beside her, looking around at the waiting room.

"I hate hospitals," she says after a while. "Always reminds me of Mags."

"That's right," Johanna says, "you were there when she had her stroke."

"And I still wouldn't go to the Capitol for the Hunger Games. That's why they reaped me."

"Gutsy," Johanna admires.

They talk desultorily for a while, but while Annie's doing her best, she's still not totally comfortable being in an unfamiliar place without Cashmere. "If they'd let me rewire the building, then I'd probably relax," she jokes.

"You should go," Johanna tells her. "It could be hours more."

Annie looks undecided. Then she tightens her lips. "Maybe I will. But only because the last thing you need right now is to deal with someone having an anxiety attack."

Johanna's eyebrows fly up. "You'd better go. I'm not very comforting."

Annie puts her hand on Johanna's wrist as she rises. "Call if you have any news. Call if you need more food."

* * *

The call they've been waiting for comes in after eight. Annie takes it. Cashmere watches her face closely, and sags in relief when Annie's voice changes and she sighs out a thank you for the update. The thumbs-up Annie gives Cashmere while talking is almost redundant after that, but Cashmere's grateful to be included in the discussion anyway.

"They have him in intensive care," Annie summarizes after she hangs up. "He'll be allowed visitors tomorrow if his condition's still stable."

"Has he woken up?" Cashmere asks.

"Not yet, but his condition looks good." Annie rises from the chair she had sunk into to take this call. "Now I'm going to bake a cake! He's not out of the woods yet, but I need something to do to calm me down."

"I want cake!" "I want cake!" A predictable chorus from the kids.

Cashmere grins shakily. "I want cake!"

Annie shares a laugh with her. "Everyone come help me bake, then."

The kitchen gets very messy with Maggie helping and Evan "helping," but it's good just to be laughing half hysterically as a family, and to have something to clean up while the cake's in the oven.

* * *

A slow surfacing back into consciousness. Tubes, everywhere. Machines, beeping. Pale blue curtain. White walls. A hospital.

Trying to ask. No sound comes. That's right. A stroke. Can't talk. A hospital in the Capitol.

 _Where's Finnick? He should be here soon._

No. Something's wrong. The meds make thoughts sluggish. He is Finnick. Mags is dead. Who is he waiting for?

Finnick sinks back into sleep, too tired to swim, and dreams of Johanna.

She's there, sometimes. Sleep and wake, sleep and wake. Do what the staff tell you. Sit up, lie down, move your arm. Take a deep breath. Cough. No, keep coughing. That's right.

Repeat after me. Come on, they took the tube out of your throat.

"My...name...is..."

Get up and use the walker when the therapist prompts. Collapse as soon as they let you back in bed.

Nod or shake your head when they ask if you want more painkillers.

Drink broth. Swallow pudding.

Let the detailed instructions for post-surgery recovery wash over you, like the drumming of rain on a roof. Johanna will remember.

Laugh silently when they show her how to do an intramuscular injection, but forget why you're laughing.

Let her fumble with the belt in the back seat of the car. A strap around the waist, but none across the twin surgical incisions on your chest. That strap goes behind.

Follow Johanna into the house, but tug at her hand when she gets lost and starts trying to steer you into a bedroom. Lie down on the couch.

Mustering annoyance is too tiring to bother, even when you're being woken up every few minutes to have your blood pressure checked, medication administered, surgical wounds cleaned gently, and always, always, the unrelenting breathing exercises into the infernal spirometer contraption Johanna's constantly holding up to your face. Easier just to go along with it. Then go back to sleep. For as long as they let you.

Nights are long and dark, without so many interruptions, but not so bad, even the sleepless ones. Johanna sleeps on the floor, pressed close against the couch, snoring comfortingly.

* * *

Johanna's never thought of herself as a particularly caretaking person, but it turns out that if she's given a set of repetitive tasks for someone she's committed to, she can knock them out efficiently without either minding or wanting to take care of people for a living.

She does worry that Finnick's still so compliant when she's prompting him to do something, and passive when she's not. It's like nothing has changed. She worries that he doesn't talk, though his doctors keep making him prove that he can.

She worries all the more because his life expectancy could be so short. The chance of him not making it through the first year is very real. So many ways for things to go wrong, and if he never really starts to live before they do, she'll hate herself for putting him through all this.

Recovery is hell, she reminds herself. This is exactly the bargain she offered him: she'll do all the work she can, and keep his part to a minimum.

So she sets up appointments, keeps track of his schedule with a checklist she carries around, checks constantly on his physical condition, records her findings, and drives him to appointments almost every day. And Finnick coughs, breathes, swallows, gets up, and walks around on demand.

Johanna feels worst about the fact that exercise is mandatory, when he spent a lifetime driving his body to and past its limits. If anyone's earned a break he has, but at least she keeps an arm close around him while they walk, doing everything she can to send the message that he's not alone. Sometimes his hand finds its way to her shoulder.

Finnick seems to sleep better when he's surrounded by people talking, so Johanna stays near when she's on the phone, keeping tabs on developments at work so that she's not too far behind when she goes back.

At the end of her three-month leave of absence, he enters into what his doctors call maintenance mode. He's still on a dizzying number of medications, and still has to exercise both his lungs and his whole body regularly, but the intensity of his recovery program has slackened.

Careful not to put too much pressure on his chest, Johanna wraps her arms around Finnick and speaks softly into his ear. "If you need me to take more time off, I will. But otherwise I'm going to give Cashmere the key to the lockbox, show her how the spirometer works, and give her the checklist and the alarms."

He doesn't protest or ask her to stay, so reluctantly, Johanna goes back to work. She spends the first few days worrying about him when she leaves in the morning, but there's so much to catch up on that she doesn't have the luxury of rumination during the day. She comes home with a spring in her step and a sense of accomplishment. Briefly, she feels guilty that she's relieved to be back in the office rather than hovering over a couch, but something, some survival instinct or sense of identity, stops her. _No, this is you. This is who you are. You get shit done._

 _Besides, who really_ _enjoys_ _their husband being on death's door and needing a full-time caretaker?_

The first real initiative Finnick takes after his recovery is to start sleeping in the bed next to Cashmere. Johanna at first has to bite her tongue to keep from objecting, but she has to admit she sleeps better when she's not constantly on alert for any sounds from the man beside her. It's not the arrangement she wants permanently, but for now, it's a relief to sleep alone on the couch and go to work well-rested.

He's still utterly quiet, even now that his breathing can no longer be heard when he's at rest, but Annie is very, very certain that he just needs time with no pressure. "That's what he gave me," she tells Johanna. "And I'm going to make sure that's what he gets."

"Because he's you?" Johanna challenges.

"Because he's been here a year, and the only three words he's used with me have been to ask me for time to heal."

So they give it to him. Annie works to pay for the roof over their heads, and she puts food on the table. Johanna works to pay medical bills, and she trades caretaking duties with Cashmere. Cashmere keeps him company and makes no demands outside Johanna's checklists.

* * *

Finnick finds Cashmere the easiest to be with for now. Annie's moved on, and she doesn't need anything from him any more. She treats him with kindness and caring, but she's making a point of not presuming on an old relationship. Johanna is his real relationship now, which means she's a live wire, brimming over with emotions where he's concerned. There are a million conversations they need to have, none of which he's up to yet.

Which leaves Cashmere. Even the way she doesn't make demands is different than it used to be. She's not passively staying at his elbow and waiting for instructions. She has two children, a house and a garden, and a very comfortable relationship with Annie. When she finds time to sit quietly in his arms, she doesn't give off waves of desperation for an escape. Now it's a well-earned treat, in the middle of a busy life.

Without that pressure of trying to be everything to her, Finnick actually finds his time with Cashmere more relaxing. It's not long before she comes to take him for one of his walks, and instead he faces her and puts his hands on her waist. "Come on, I'm bored with walks. Put on some music."

Her face lights up, and she glows the whole time they dance. The last time they got to dance was at his Victory Ball, almost twenty years ago. They attended a lot of balls after that, but Finnick was on a mission, and Cashmere wasn't part of it.

Now there are no more missions. Just...

"Sweetheart. Precious angel. Kitten. Amazon."

"Swordfish," Cashmere adds mischievously. "Annie and I agreed that if I were a fish, I'd be a swordfish."

Finnick laughs as much as he can without straining his surgical wounds. "If there were other honeybees around, you would be their queen."

"And if there were other Amazons, I'd be the princess!"

The playful bantering of endearments back and forth continues. It warms Finnick inside to see her making it into a game, not drinking it in desperately like she doesn't know when someone will be nice to her again.

Maybe deciding to live was worth it, he tells himself. Slow dancing around the living room and laughing with Cashmere. Even if he's on a schedule that tells him he'll have to breathe into the spiro-thing as soon as they're done here.

"I'm sorry about Penelope," he says, when the endearments have tapered off. "I asked around during the war, but no one knew. And then I was too tired to go looking anyone up. She might be okay."

Finnick doesn't think it's likely, but stranger things have happened. Like Annie surviving the arena.

"It's all right," Cashmere tells him. Her arms are comforting. "I understand. And I plant flowers. One for each person Annie and I lost, right in a row by the steps. I'll show you next spring." Then she says, as though it's a new thought, "I guess I can stop planting one for you."

There's the faintest hint of a question in her voice, and Finnick pauses.

He can't promise that his body will hold up under the transplant, and he doesn't want to promise that he'll never go back to wanting to sleep forever, but...

Maybe he's not so lost?

"I guess you can."

* * *

"It's a bit crowded," Johanna says tentatively one day. Finnick can hear from her voice that it's not a complaint, but a problem she wants to solve and is determined to get right.

Finnick nods. "I appreciate everyone putting up with it."

"I found an apartment," Johanna tells him. She's watching his face and saying every word so slowly it's like she's treading on ice. When he looks interested, she continues, "It's only one room with a kitchenette, but it's closer to the office. I wouldn't have to get a car, and there'd still be plenty of money left over for medical expenses."

Finnick's also treading on ice. "How far from here?"

"Not very. A fifteen-minute drive, maybe. There are a couple others I've looked at, but they're farther."

"Sounds like you'd better make a move on this one, then," Finnick says with a smile. "I'm sure Cashmere will be happy to shuttle me back and forth."

Her unguarded face brightens with surprise. "I will, then."

On the day the lease starts, Finnick notices she hasn't packed his things. There isn't much, but there's the lockbox with all his medications, some clothes, some odds and ends. She hasn't asked him to get his own stuff ready, but she shouldn't have to; he's a grown man. He feels a faint wave of shame wash over him as he finds a paper bag in the kitchen for his clothes. She's been working a full-time job, waiting hand and foot on him, and somehow finding time to meet with landlords on the side. And she hasn't even complained, which is more than he, or really anyone, deserves.

When she comes into the bedroom, he gestures toward the bag on the bed next to him. "Ready whenever you are."

He's watching her face closely, humiliated because he's looking for some sign of relief at the fact that he's pulling a tiny bit of his own weight for the first time in years, and so he sees a shock that goes all too far for mere surprise that he put his own clothes in a bag and dug his lockbox out from under the bed.

Johanna stares blankly. Then she swallows. "You're—coming?" she gets out, and the world drops from below Finnick's feet.

* * *

Johanna's hands shake as she turns the key in the gate. "It's right through here." She has to set down her suitcase to do it, and Finnick grabs the handle. He drags it with him down the sidewalk to where the door to the building is. She has to unlock that one too.

Finnick's on the verge of panic, holding it together only because he knows he's about to have the most important conversation of his life. He's been fighting for composure since that first, shocked exchange, when they agreed to finish this with more privacy, but resignation isn't coming easy.

He tries telling himself that he's not fully losing her, that she'll be a short drive away, but he knows that, once again, he's turned out to be too much for anyone to handle.

As soon as they're inside their unit, they drop their bags by the door, and Finnick sinks to the floor beside them, burying his face in his hands. Before Johanna can say anything, Finnick starts talking fast. "Look, I don't blame you, I'm surprised you lasted as long as you did, and I won't push it, but you owe me this much. One conversation."

Last time she left, he took his welcome for granted and followed her, but what made him think the last year didn't wear out his welcome?

"I didn't know you wanted to come." Johanna fiddles with the zipper on the suitcase, but she can't keep her concentration on unpacking, so she comes and sits on the cold tile floor a couple feet away from him. The apartment's bare of everything except them and their bags.

Finnick's jaw drops. "Didn't want—I told you last time. I came here and visited Annie and Cashmere and left with you."

"That was years ago," Johanna protests. "You were dying."

She thinks _he_ stopped wanting to live with _her_? "If I'd changed my mind after all these years, I'd have told you. Like I expected you to tell me." Maybe it should have been obvious. After the last year, why the hell would she want to stick around? But to be fair, he never asked for anything more than a place to sleep. The rest was all her.

Maybe they can go back to that. He'll pull himself together, if she's just willing to let him sleep on the floor again. If he can.

"I thought..." She tilts her head, looking at him like she's seeing him for the first time. "All these years? To me they all felt temporary. Just until the logistical problems were solved. Just until the war was over. Just until things were stable enough to go looking up Annie. Just until you died. Just until you recovered."

Finnick's heart clenches. It never mattered if she was too uncomfortable to give him affection; she gave him a sense of security, and so he stayed. Now she's telling him he never gave her that same security?

Stricken, Finnick turns and holds out a hand. Johanna stares at it, and then puts her cold hand on top of his. "I thought you were still in love with Annie, and Cashmere's the one you have chemistry with. Why are you here?"

"You're the only one I've ever successfully lived with," Finnick says simply. This isn't the conversation he was expecting to have, but maybe he was too conscious of her standoffishness and didn't tell her half of what she needed to hear.

Johanna gives him a bewildered look. "Wasn't that an accident of timing? War, separation, injuries?"

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe the accident of timing was getting to know Annie before you? What if you'd been from Four?"

Finnick sits back and invites her to think about that, while he tries to hide the pounding of his heart. Maybe he gets a place to sleep after all.

"I'd have been a Career," she says right away. Her next conclusions come more slowly. "Maybe even a volunteer. I have to assume I'd have won. The same year, I guess. I can't promise I would have volunteered for Annie. Though I might have gone into my _Fine, I'll do it myself_ mode.

"Either way, I'd have ended up in the Village. I wouldn't have had to marry Rudder to be your neighbor."

Finnick smiles, and she gives him a look that's not quite a tongue stuck out.

"We'd have ended up volunteering at the academy, right? That's how it works there?" She doesn't wait for his nod. "Beating each other up."

Finnick finally laughs his relief. "We wouldn't have gone on dates or had an affair. But maybe you'd have let me sleep over at your place at the end of a long evening of fighting, after curfew."

Johanna's surprised again. "I assumed you'd spend nights at Annie's. No?"

"Sex, yes, sleep, no. Not in her first few years after the Hunger Games. You didn't know her then. It was a lot harder for her." Finnick keeps his voice neutral, being fair. Not letting on how much he needed not to be alone. Not letting on how much he needs it now.

"Hmph." Johanna thinks about it. "I didn't know that. So when I started telling you to report for sleeping duty..."

"It was the first time I'd had a place to go every night since I had to move into my own house at fourteen." He can't keep the ache out of his voice. "But if it's too much for you-"

"If it's too much for me?" Johanna interrupts. "I'm not the one who started sleeping next to Cashmere."

"Because I didn't want to suffocate you. I know I can be a lot to take. Not the overachieving, you always could more than handle that, but the-" Finnick's throat closes around the word, which is stupid, because he spent years happily answering to _slut_ and _airhead_ (but at least one of those was an act), but he forces it out. "-clinginess. It was too much even for Mags sometimes. I understand."

"What clinginess?!" Johanna explodes. "Suffocate? You keep disappearing. You slept on the fucking floor. Every time I turned around, you'd be in a different part of the country. You barely spoke to anyone the last two years. Now you're telling me you left a couch you preferred to find a bed so you could spare me, and you're saying you're too much to take?"

"I said I was clingy," Finnick says tightly, "not that I have no self-control. I tried to tone it down so we'd last longer, but I honestly don't know how you survived the last year. So if you ran out of energy..." He shrugs. "Thank you."

Johanna shakes her head in amazement. "You've never thought less self-control is what you need? Shit. And now you think I can't handle you?"

Finnick buries his face in his hands. "That wasn't a challenge, Jo, it wasn't a dig at your stamina or—except, yes, of course you would take it that way-"

"No, it better not be," Johanna snaps, "not coming from you, but what the hell kind of spy doesn't notice the difference between me and—all right, I'm not going to disrespect Mags or Annie out loud, although if it was anyone else, I'd have a few things to say-"

Finnick starts laughing, helplessly. He's lost, this whole conversation, this whole day has him dizzy and trying to trying to find some solid ground to put his feet on, but this is so thoroughly Johanna that he can't help feeling reassured anyway. At least they've been friends since he danced with her and told her she wasn't alone.

"Let me put it this way, then. You can handle anything I throw at you, but whether you're comfortable with affection, or you suddenly remember urgent appointments any time you get a whiff of it, is another story. And that's fine, I respect your prickliness, but if you think I can't make you feel suffocated, it's because I've been respecting the prickles."

Johanna grunts, the wind going out of her sails, because she can't argue with that. "Well, after all the _I thought_ _you_ _didn't want to, I thought_ _you_ _didn't_ nonsense, like a couple of lovesick teenagers, we've at least decided that you're reporting for sleeping duty here, am I right?"

"Yes, boss," Finnick says. "And like I said, Annie's close by, and Cashmere drives."

"I just thought you meant she wouldn't mind bringing you over to visit, sometimes."

He'd seen the relief in her face when he said that. "I meant that I'd spend the days over there, when you're at work. She can pick me up when she's coming back from dropping Annie off in the city, and vice versa in the evening. I won't be alone during the day. And I'm getting more independent. If you want to stay out late, please do."

Johanna smiles a little, loosening some of the knots in Finnick's stomach. "Annie will feed you dinner." It's not a question.

"Oh, Annie's already promised she'll keep cooking for us. I'll bring the food home in the evening, warm it up when you get home."

"All right. I was going to get a bed today, but how about just a mattress on the floor? Wanna give that a try?"

Finnick thinks about it. Maybe he'll sleep better that way, but he can't count on it. "Thanks, but not worth it, especially with your back."

"As long as the mattress is good, my back doesn't care how high off the ground it is. We'll try that, then. And how's this? I don't care what kind of shape you're in, but if you're up for a little sparring again, we'll see about some of those urgent appointments."

Finnick gives her a smile, not sure how he got this lucky. Then he raises his eyebrows and laughs a little to himself.

"What?" She half smiles, half scowls, and kicks at his shoe.

"I was just thinking, maybe it's for the best that you weren't District Four. I feel sorry for anyone who had to deal with both of us at that age."

"Oh, so you're saying you miss sparring too," and that's all the warning he gets before she throws herself at him and they start whaling on each other. "Don't say that! I would have been the best thing that ever happened to your fishy district."

Finnick's exhausted, drained after all the ups and downs of today, but he joins in the roughhousing out of gratitude, and because he misses it too. He misses a lot of things that he's too tired for. "No, but seriously, can you imagine the trouble we would have gotten into? _Two_ of us? I got kicked out of the academy all on my own."

"I would have overshadowed you so much you'd be commiserating in the corner with Brine," Johanna boasts.

Finnick laughs so hard at that that she gets him into a shoulder lock. He lets her pin him to the tile floor of their new apartment, and she rests there for a minute, enjoying her victory. "A little tame, but I'll go easy on you today. Mags would have included me in the inner circle, right?"

"No question," Finnick tells her. He understands why she needs her what-ifs and could-have-beens. "In fact, she might have tried to talk you out of volunteering in hopes of saving you for bigger and better fights later." _Why do you think there was no one to volunteer in Seventy?_ He shuts out Rudder's voice firmly.

"She might have succeeded," Johanna admits.

"That's how we won the war. Mags' protégées."

Releasing him, Johanna sits back on her heels. "Is that why all your victors..." She thinks. "Was it just Mags and Annie?"

"We had one other female victor," Finnick tells her, "right after Mags. She died when I was young. Other than that, yeah, I think Mags considered the boys expendable."

"Including you?" Finnick can see Johanna readying for another fight.

"I didn't give her many choices. Remember, I adopted her before she adopted me." Finnick gives Johanna a tender look. "Adopted family is where it's at."

"Well." Johanna rises, shaking herself and dusting her hands on her pants. "Looks like I've got a mattress to buy."

Finnick grins his relief. "Better pick one with room for two."

* * *

Evan only takes two big puffs to blow out all five candles, and everyone applauds enthusiastically. Cashmere picks up the large knife and serves him a piece of his cake. Then Maggie, drumming her feet on the floor while she waits for her turn. Both children are already digging in when Cashmere asks Johanna how much she would like, and Johanna indicates, somewhat stiffly, where in the cake Cashmere should cut.

Faced with the same deceptively simple question, Finnick simply freezes. He stares at the cake, trying to come up with an answer, with no success, until the wheels of his mind are spinning in place, not going anywhere. A faint tremor runs through his jaw.

Cashmere, her flow broken, asks again, more unsure of herself this time. Johanna sits up straight in her chair and clutches her fork like she needs to stab whatever's responsible for that look on Finnick's face, but unable to start without knowing who or what.

Annie, who's been distracted with glowing at the birthday boy, notices the change in atmosphere. She looks back and forth between Cashmere's confusion and her hand hovering over the cake with knife at ready, Johanna's protectiveness, and Finnick's blankness. Just as she's sorting out what happened, Cashmere tries to recover the situation by switching her attention to someone easier. "Annie, I know you want a big piece," she says, and presses the knife in.

"Yes, please, I'll get mine," Annie says, thinking fast, and she reaches for the knife. Cashmere lets go and takes a step back, certain she's done something wrong, but unable to imagine what on earth it was.

Annie, torn between caring simultaneously for two people's needs, says, "Thank you, honeybee," as warmly as she can. She keeps a reassuring smile on her face while she cuts.

After dropping an ample serving onto her own plate, Annie cuts a thin but still respectable slice for Finnick. She calculates it carefully. It's got to be an actual piece that takes more than two bites to finish, but not one so large that an athlete on a diet would feel bound to refuse it out of hand. She wants something he can eat just this once, without guilt, and without worrying about whether he's breaking or keeping his diet.

Johanna's watching this scene play out with her hawk eyes, and she doesn't look down at her own plate until Finnick's halfway through his slice. With Cashmere finally starting in on hers, the atmosphere relents, and the party continues happily enough, with only a faint undercurrent of tension.

Johanna's the first to act on the tension, of course. Grabbing her plate as soon as it's empty, she makes an abrupt move for the sink with it, but the moment she's standing behind Finnick's chair, she narrows her eyes while raising her eyebrows questioningly at Annie.

Annie nods. She doesn't know exactly what the question is, but it's something along the lines of, _Do you know what the fuck just happened?_

 _I'm on it,_ Annie's nod says.

She manages more silent communication with Cashmere, who handles the kids and cleanup, while Annie steers Finnick to the living room. Annie runs one hand from his neck partway down his back, and then up again under his arm as if she were physically hauling him to his feet, only with the gentlest of signals instead. She keeps her hand on his back the whole way.

He's gone as passive as Cashmere in the earliest days, only it's not as scary, because Annie knows him well enough to know what's going on in his head.

She has an intuition that he'll actually feel like talking, as long as he has someone to ever so gently nudge him like this. He proves her right when he seats himself on the middle of the couch. Yes, he immediately turns to the side, away from her, but he's explicitly giving her room to sit down beside him, and not forcing her to perch on the arm.

Johanna's pacing in the hallway. Annie wants to tell her to go home, that she needs to have a life that isn't hovering over Finnick every second—for her own sake, even leaving aside Finnick's—but the absolute last thing she can do right now is start a fight with Johanna. So they'll have that conversation some other time.

Meanwhile, Annie strokes Finnick unselfconsciously. It's amazing how comfortable they are with each other, so comfortable that Annie can just touch him whenever he needs it, without worrying about what Cashmere will think, and without fear of falling deeper into an old relationship that needs to be left in the past. It's just easy.

She wishes solving his problems were as easy. She knows what hit him like a sledgehammer at such an innocuous family party. He's too tired to throw himself back into a diet and exercise regimen just because it's what he knows, but he's not ready to commit to giving it up yet. Not ready to say _that's not who I am any more._

The same is true of so many other things, being pretty, being the life of the party, being passionate about his goals.

While she soothes him with her fingertips on his back, she's trying to think how to begin, in case he doesn't want to, but still giving him time in case he does.

He does.

"You said I could stay."

"I meant it." Annie presses just a little harder with her fingertips, willing him to believe it.

"I always figured I'd be busy helping put the new nation together. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. And then I found myself on a couch, thinking that sleeping forever sounded pretty damn appealing."

"You can sit on my couch forever, Finnick. How does that sound?"

Finnick just shakes his head. He sounds completely lost.

"I used to be a juggernaut. I don't know where that went. The only thing that made me look forward to death was not having to do that ever again."

"You don't have to," Annie says, of course, but those words are so predictable that they slide right off. Who is she to decide what he does and doesn't have to do? What do you say to an identity crisis?

"If I even had anything to replace it with—but I don't. No ideas. I got nothing."

"You have time. You think any of this doesn't sound familiar? Who am I married to?" She freezes, having forgotten for a split second that she was once married to him, but she relaxes when Finnick actually laughs. Just a brief sound, more a self-deprecating snort than anything else, but it's a start.

"Someone who spent her whole life trying to make her district proud and had no ideas after that? You must be an old hand at this conversation by now," he teases.

"I am," Annie says. It doesn't feel like it, but if she doesn't have answers, at least she can give him confidence. "I can tell you to stay on this couch until you figure it out. And you know something? She figured it out, and she's still here."

"Johanna said I could stay with her," Finnick remembers, longing in every word. "She let me sleep on the floor in her room. After you left, during the war."

"So you stay with her. Take your time," Annie soothes. "Take all the time you need. Figure out who you are, who you were, and who you want to be. Don't juggernaut your way through another mission just for lack of better ideas. Sit here. Hold Cashmere. Eat my food. Go home with Johanna. Take your time," she whispers over and over, until Finnick finally melts enough to shiver.

"Annie? When you grieve someone, isn't it supposed to fade as you move on? Aren't you supposed to start remembering the happy times when you think of them?"

"What do you feel when you think of her?" Annie asks gently. She doesn't have to ask who he's grieving.

"Fear, mostly. When she was around to tell me she was proud of me, I could be sure I was doing enough. Now there's only a question mark I can never satisfy. And now I can't stop wondering what she's done to me. Why was it only acceptable for me to sit on your couch and eat your food because I was expecting to die soon? Was that Mags?" Finnick's voice breaks on this part.

"And even if she were alive, would she tell me I've earned the chance to rest? Or would she be sitting here with her hand on my hair telling me what an amazing job I've done and how much she depends on me, coaxing me off the couch so I could go solve her next problem and make her proud? Is she the reason I can't believe I get to live unless I'm putting a country back together? Is she the reason that when I look at my future, I go completely blank? The reason all I can see is choice between death or working myself to the point of collapse again? I used to call myself Mags' heir like it was a good thing, but look what happened to her."

His jaw clenches as he bites down on the tears that are flowing now. Annie's heart breaks for him. She can only imagine what it costs him to question Mags like this.

She has no facile answers at the ready, so she only wraps her arms around him and presses her cheek to the back of his shoulder while he cries. His shirt grows damp, because Annie loved Mags and always credited her with anything good in Finnick's life. His resilience in the face of trauma. Trusting people. Reaching out to help.

But now that he's asked those questions out loud, it's so easy to see their relationship from a more sinister angle. Annie doesn't even have to ask where this is coming from, because he's right. That's Mags too. She molded Finnick. She taught him to erase himself. Her final act was to demonstrate that your life ends when your contributions to the cause end.

Annie's arms tighten around Finnick like she can hold him here if she just doesn't let go. _No, don't, don't fall into that trap._

"You know..." Annie says slowly, "Mags did a lot of things. One of those things was work for change. She dragged me into an arena. But don't you think she'd be relieved that she doesn't have to any more? Maybe she died for a world where you can sit on my couch."

"Maybe." Finnick is unconvinced. "But she wasn't proud of dragging you into the arena."

Annie's face falls. She doesn't know how to fight Mags' influence. Mags always knew best, old and wise and loving.

All she does then is hold on to him, until she can feel that he feels completely empty inside, drained from this conversation, and for the next part she knows he needs Johanna.

So she goes to find the woman who makes everyone uncomfortable. The kids avoid being alone with her; Cashmere shrinks away from her, convinced that Johanna despises her; and Annie always feels her anxieties spiking when she's around, even through the effort she's making to bond.

 _This may be the bravest thing I ever do,_ Annie thinks, but she's here in her own house, with Cashmere and Finnick to make her feel safe, and kids she's taken in and made feel safe, and so she's got the courage.

Annie steps forward and hugs Johanna Mason. "Thank you."

So fast it's over almost before it starts, not even giving Johanna the option of reciprocating or rejecting, and talking fast the moment she takes a step back, overriding Johanna's automatic "What the fu-"

"That was long overdue, but thank you. Not so much for the big things, like dragging him halfway across the world or getting a job and kicking butt at it to pay the bills, because you do that stuff just like breathing, but for bringing him to a kids' birthday party, or for living with us all that time."

Johanna has backed up during this speech and is standing pressed against the hallway closet door, breathing harder than she should be. "What on earth did he say?"

"We didn't talk about you. But I keep seeing these changes for the better, like the fact that he's willing to talk at all. He still needs time, lots of time, and as much support as he can get. But if he's getting there, I know who to thank."

"Well." Johanna clears her throat and changes the subject. "Is anyone going to tell me what the fuck happened tonight? Is cake, like, this huge fucking land mine for him? He was totally engaged, or as engaged as he gets these days, and then _bam_." Johanna snaps her fingers. "He checks out, just like that."

"I'll tell you," Annie promises, "tomorrow if you want, if he hasn't already. But he's worn out and I'm sending him home tonight. But no, it's not exactly a land mine, just...a straw on a camel that's carried too many loads."

"You don't know how much I want to kill everyone who's hurt him."

Annie makes a wry face. "I'm afraid you'd have to kill me and Mags. But tonight wasn't even so much about him being hurt. It was about having no idea what to do now. So I'm sending him home with you to figure it out."

* * *

With Finnick's chest more or less healed, Cashmere can lean into it. Before this, they had to take care that she was always lying or sitting behind him, and careful where she put her arms. Now they're back to moving around naturally, seeking comfort in every position, and Finnick gives wordless thanks that they've got this back.

"You've been here," Finnick says in the middle of a good long snuggle. "How did you go from having no idea what to do with your life after you became a victor, to..." He waves his hand in a circle, taking in not just the living room, but everything. "Happiness?"

Cashmere makes a thoughtful sound. "It took a long time. Everyone kept saying, 'Do whatever you want!' and that was the scariest thing I'd ever heard. Then you kept trying to find out what I wanted, and I didn't understand the question. By the time Annie and I came here, I understood it better, but I was panicking because everyone else had an answer and I didn't. So I'd pick things at random and throw myself into them enthusiastically to hide my shame at not being like everyone else. Don't do what I did," she advises with a half-laugh.

Finnick nestles his chin on her shoulder. "But you did find it, eventually."

"I did. I don't know quite how to explain how it happened. I was just going along with Annie's plans—because I did want to build a new life, even if I didn't have any clear idea what it should look like. We were making the house nice, and I decided to clean out the worst of the yard, because otherwise it'd still look like a dump from the outside.

"Then next thing I knew, I was enjoying the physical labor, the fresh air, the dirt, and seeing the progress I was making. I never really decided to try gardening as a hobby. I just looked up one day and realized I was in the middle of a project I cared about. Then things just kept falling into place like that."

Cashmere rubs her fingers against the curve of his neck and shoulder while she thinks. He loves Jo for being willing to overcome her own reluctance in order to give him the touch he craves, but it makes such a difference when it's Cashmere's contentment matching his own.

"I guess the key is that it took a long time, and it worked out better when I was open to trying new things, but not rushing it. Renovating was Annie's big project, so if I didn't love it, no problem."

The thought of this uncertainty dragging on indefinitely is enough to induce the faintest flutter of panic in the corners of Finnick's mind. _See, this is why I was planning to just let it all go._ But somehow, that logic no longer seems as compelling as it did.

Besides, Annie's given him an idea.

Stroking Cashmere's hair, he tells her, testing the waters, "Annie suggested I start going with you on dates. Dinner, dancing, whatever strikes our fancy."

Cashmere moves her head so that they're facing, and he sees her eyes bright with delight. "Really? Do you want to?"

Finnick had been thinking it would bring back too many memories of being a plaything in the Capitol, courted, escorted, and sold, but here Cashmere's glowing like it's too good to be true. Maybe she's come further than he has in years since they met, given the opportunity to heal old wounds when he was incurring new ones.

His mouth curves slowly into a smile while he studies her face, saying nothing.

"What?" she asks under his scrutiny.

"You know what's too good to be true. You, honeybee." She shouldn't be this, this, _open_ to him, this willing to risk her heart by showing how excited she is at the idea. Not after he left her to her own devices before the war, left her with Annie in Three, encouraged her to leave the country, and left her for Johanna twice. In over ten years, he's probably spent less than three months with her, until he showed up here needing to be taken care of.

 _You should have more trust issues._

Maybe it's Annie, giving Cashmere the stability that makes a fling like this safe. Maybe he's just used to Johanna and Katniss, and Cashmere's simply more open by nature. Whatever it is, Finnick accepts that it's a gift, not something he earned.

Cashmere, meanwhile, has taken this idea and is running with it. "I don't have a good evening dress. What I have is lots of clothes for working in the garden. Annie's perfect, but you know going out isn't really our thing. I don't suppose you want to come help me pick out clothes?"

Finnick laughs helplessly. He's still wrestling with his feelings about his looks, about watching them fade with illness, and about the way they were weapons used both by and against him. But Cashmere looks like she's found her answers.

"If it's too soon, I understand." She knows what he's thinking, because she's traveled this same road. It gives him hope that maybe he'll get to where she is. "But you brought it up, and Annie said I should dress up for myself. This would be for myself, I'm sure of it."

"Then I'm sure too." Finnick moves his face closer to hers, and they kiss, warm and easy. "Let's do it. If it ends up being too much, I'll let you know. But there's only one way to find out."


	3. Chapter 3

Johanna always schedules the bi-weekly software development meeting on a Monday, and makes reports due by the end of the day on the preceding Friday. That way she has time to review the reports over the weekend and put together an agenda for the meeting. When she took over as manager, meetings consisted of everyone reading their reports out loud. Johanna stopped that waste of time immediately. Now she collects reports and goes over them to compile the parts that could actually use some discussion.

Splitting the reports and the meeting across a weekend was something she originally did to accommodate her own schedule. When Finnick was seeing a doctor every day and Johanna was taking long, often oddly-timed, lunches in the middle of her workday, she made up for it with as much evening and weekend work as she could manage.

Even now that Finnick only has monthly checkups, the timing works for her. Most of her job needs to be done in the office, but some parts, like this, are easier with peace and quiet.

What the hell is a heuristic search algorithm, anyway? Johanna has to read this report several times to try to make sense of it. And why the hell can't engineers write in clear prose? It's like they struggle with real sentences and would rather stick to their favorite programming language. But she persists, because the more technical know-how she picks up, the closer she gets to a promotion into real money.

That's why it's better to do this in her own apartment, sitting at the table by the window, with her stack of papers lit by sunlight streaming through breaks in the clouds, while she sips at her coffee.

But even quiet can be distracting. Finnick showered and dressed some time ago, then went straight back to bed. The silence penetrates Johanna's awareness, until it dawns on her that he's neither fallen asleep nor moved. He's simply sitting there, listless, on the mattress, because they don't have a couch. She hasn't bothered doing anything with this apartment, with Finnick always at Annie's and her always at work.

This is nothing new, nothing but what he's done since his lungs started shutting down on her couch in North Panem. But it's been more than a year since the transplant, and Johanna's still haunted by second thoughts. If his life hasn't changed, was the transplant worth it? What has she put him through?

Johanna continues trying to understand why her search specialist is referring to this particular algorithm as a 'genetic' one, when everything this company does is about genetics, but her concentration is broken.

"Hey. Finnick." Johanna eases herself down on the edge of the mattress, her papers abandoned on the table. "I'm here." She doesn't like asking how he is, because the answer is usually either painful or bent on downplaying the truth. He'll answer questions about specific symptoms, but today she's likely to get little more than a shrug to anything like _How are you?_

Finnick acknowledges her with a small smile, and he passes her a pillow for back support. Johanna accepts it and leans back against the wall next to him. He's been tucked into the corner, sitting with his knees drawn up, but he comes closer when she joins him. At least that much initiative is an improvement.

Petting's getting easier. It still feels weird to be this demonstrative, but the motions are coming more naturally. Johanna strokes Finnick's back in much the same way that he does hers, because that's her best guess as to what he likes. She hasn't been able to bring herself to ask, and he's never said anything, just let her get comfortable with touch at her own pace.

"Are you sure you're all right sitting here? Do you want to do something together?" She doesn't worry about Finnick during the week, because he spends it with Cashmere, but he insists that he wants to have weekends with Johanna, and then she ignores him to do work. "We can go out, I'm not that busy."

"Annie said it was okay," Finnick says. His voice is tight, and something is wrong, but Johanna doesn't know what. That's not enough to go on.

"That what's okay?" she asks, when he stops there.

"That if I got better, I didn't have to do anything that I wasn't doing when I was dying. It was the only reason I agreed to a transplant. And I'm sorry if you were under the impression that I'd get better, but it's not like a new pair of lungs is going to make me magically not tired. And to be fair, I didn't ask for it."

Johanna can't answer right away, but the only surprise is that he lasted this long before letting the resentment spill out. _I know. I was selfish, just because I couldn't bear to lose you._

"Do you hate me for it?" She avoided asking as long as the topic didn't come up, but she's no coward.

"I did," Finnick admits. "It's very easy to push my _no one cares what you want, someone else needs you_ buttons, and that's what you did when you dragged me here."

"I know," Johanna says, miserable. "But I thought that at least this way I'd be able to make it up to you later. If I respected your wishes but didn't protect you, there'd be no way to do anything about it ever again. Are you still angry? Do you regret it?"

Finnick sighs. "Annie said I didn't have to get back on my feet, and that's when I started thinking maybe it would be worth it. If you're all right with that, then no. It hasn't been bad, and I would miss you all. But I can't perform any more."

"I don't want you to perform," Johanna tells him. "I just want to make sure you're not bored or neglected."

The bedcover crumples under Finnick's fingers as they dig a handful of fabric up for him to hold tight to. "I know when you met me, I was a completely different person, and that's what you miss. Do _you_ regret it?"

Johanna knows the answer is no, but she also knows, and she knows he knows, that she has mixed feelings about the outcome, and she's not sure how to put any of her feelings into words, even to herself.

"I can't if you don't," Johanna says at last. "You're still under orders to report here for sleeping duty. But I was supposed to keep you from burning out in the first place, and I regret whatever I did or didn't do that went wrong there."

Finnick takes her hand. "I think that was always out of your control, Jo. But I can tell you I lasted a lot longer than I would have without you. And I am trying, even if it doesn't look like it. It's hard to explain-"

"You don't owe anyone an explanation about anything," Johanna interrupts. "I'm as okay with it as Annie." To prove it, she pulls up a blanket and tucks it around his shoulders.

"No, because you care more," Finnick corrects sadly. "But it's all right. And I do want to explain. I feel like...I used to have all these protective layers, shields or armor or walls or whatever you want to call them. Even skin. But now they've all been peeled away. It's not like an open bleeding wound underneath, just...exposed nerves everywhere. Without those insulating layers, every touch on a nerve is like being electrocuted.

"And there's almost nothing that doesn't strike a nerve. Food. It either fits my old diet or it doesn't, and either way it's trying to shove me into a decision about my priorities. Do I still care about my figure or not? Meeting people. I used to have ways of interacting with strangers, and now I can't talk to anyone without being reminded who I used to be and how far away from all that I am now.

"Clothes. Hobbies. Everything. I can't go through a day without feeling like I'm being electrically shocked."

Johanna remembers, sickly, that he's been electrocuted, so he's not using this analogy lightly.

"So I'm trying to build up protective layers again," Finnick explains. "I'm trying to avoid taking more shocks at once than I can handle. And I'm trying to find things that don't touch a nerve. Anything that makes me feel...Safe isn't really the right word. Soothed, maybe. Or sheltered. Even numb, if that's the best I can do, but shelter is best."

Finnick looks around their apartment. He gestures at the walls with his hand. "You made this happen. Every day you go out and make this happen, and you sit there at the table with your paperwork making it happen. The same with your house back home, in the mountains. It's stronger when you're here, but even when you're not, there's that feeling of shelter. It's why I like that it rains so much here. Sometimes I pretend that it's raining even when it's not," he confesses. "That it's cold and wet outside, and warm and dry inside, and all I have to do is stay where it's warm and dry."

Johanna is usually someone who has to consciously figure out what Finnick needs and give it to him, but for once, when she wraps her arms around him and pulls him close to her, it's for her, not him. Yes, he was a different person when she met him. And most of it a lie. Laughing and dancing, wearing makeup and masks, purring and showing skin to whatever rich woman or man was hanging on his arm and giving him all his heart's desires. Always on display, all of him, and loving every minute of it. Now all he asks is to be in out of the rain, and he's breaking her heart.

It's the energy and passion that were real in the man she met. She misses them, but her sense of loss is yielding to the urge to cradle him close and give him more than simply a place to live. "I haven't wanted to call attention to that in a way that would make you uncomfortable," Johanna begins awkwardly. "But if it makes you comfortable, I would like that."

"I won't pretend I don't have mixed feelings about this arrangement," Finnick says. "Not about anything you're doing, working and being successful. I just go back and forth. I'm grateful, but it also feels wrong. We're supposed to be working together. If not on the same project, then side-by-side, playing to our own strengths, and working toward a common goal. And then I remember I can't do goals anymore."

"It sounds to me like you have a goal. Regrowing protective layers, remember?" Johanna reminds him. Her arms are still tight around him, and she won't let go. "And I'm okay with—well, not with the fact that you've been drained so dry. But now that you have been, someone needs to protect you. Shelter you." She takes her chin in his hand and speaks firmly. "Someone is me."

Finnick nods. "Thank you," he whispers. "Thank you for telling me that."

Johanna tosses her head, and her hair flies over her shoulders. "Because I've been thinking, and...I used to watch you giving the fight in Panem your all, and I felt bad because I wasn't accomplishing as much as I could." She remembers drawing lines in the sand and insisting that there were things she wasn't willing to do. She remembers picking and choosing, bitching about the things she did do, and hanging on to the conviction that so much of what she had to do was terrible.

"But watching you now..." Johanna sighs, and then she half-laughs. "Well, there'd be two of us on the couch. The reason I can get up and keep going is because I held something in reserve for myself. So can we both agree not to feel guilty?"

"Because I gave it my all so you wouldn't have to, and you held back so I wouldn't have to get out of bed today?"

"Can you think of it that way?" Johanna asks. She hates the sight of his face when he looks at her the way she used to look at him: _I'm sorry, but I can't do what you're doing._

"I can try," Finnick says. "I would get up if I could. But Annie said I don't have to."

"You don't," Johanna tells him firmly. "You let me be the protected and the protector. You let Katniss. You let Cashmere. So for once in your life you're going to shut up and let yourself."

* * *

Finnick clings to Johanna's words.

It's easier to let her boss him into resting than to be constantly coming up with justifications in his own head, when she goes off to work in the morning and he stays in bed, waiting for Cashmere. He memorizes the sound of Johanna's voice saying _Someone is me_ , and he replays it whenever the niggling in his head starts in.

It gives him the permission he needs to keep searching for things that don't set off raw nerves. Cashmere's wonderful, busying herself around the house and yard and letting him choose whether he wants to pitch in or sit alone on the couch. He listens to the sounds that follow her, while he soothes himself with words like _Shelter. Nest. Home._ She always finds time to come sit with him, and he knows she comes for her own enjoyment even more than his. And she's game for any ideas he has about venturing out.

The last one always takes a certain alignment of the stars, when there's so little that doesn't remind him of anything in his past. Sometimes the only thing that gets him out and trying new experiences is the ability to pretend that he's in the past, during his playboy heyday, and getting to spend time courting Cashmere, instead of ignoring her in favor of seducing everyone who might be useful to his plans.

On days when he can bring himself to leave the house, he tries to think of things that are simple and fun. Sometimes they go out in the evenings, when Annie's home to watch the kids, but more often they having their outings during the day, with the kids in school.

Restaurants, dancing, parks, shopping...whatever won't demand too much of him while he struggles with a flood of memories that are like challenges. _So who are you now? What are you doing here? What do you want?_

They visit the library, where Cashmere drops in to pick up or return Annie's latest requests, and Finnick tries to focus on the pleasure of Cashmere's company and of making Annie happy, to forget everything that books remind him of.

On the way home, they drive past a public swimming pool, and as always Finnick feels a twinge when he sees it. Part of him wants to suggest they stop, but another part shies away. The memories are too strong, even if it's only a pool.

He doesn't suggest Cashmere take a different route, though, as he's trying to use the repetition to get used to the idea. If only because the thought of her in a two-piece swimsuit is intriguing. He hasn't got his full sex drive back, but Cashmere's still easy on the eyes. She meant it when she said she'd enjoy dressing up for him, and she's sensitive enough not to suggest he return the favor.

Someday. Someday.

"Oh, Annie said she was short on screws and brackets, and she'd like a multipack. Do you mind if I stop by the hardware store?"

"Sure," Finnick says. But he sits in the parking lot instead of following Cashmere inside, trying not to remember when he was the one who brought Annie her tools. Those aren't the thoughts he's supposed to be thinking. Nor about the fact that there's really no reason he couldn't learn to drive.

He's supposed to be thinking about Cashmere and Johanna, and how they're happy to chauffeur him and Annie around. How the car is a kind of shelter, and Cashmere's taking care of things. How it isn't raining now, but it did earlier, and the world is still glittery with droplets under the silver-grey sky. Maybe it'll rain again later.

When Cashmere returns and pulls the car out of the parking spot, Finnick surprises himself by asking, "Can we just drive around? With nowhere to go?"

"Of course. City, suburbs, countryside...?"

"Surprise me," Finnick offers. He finds the sensation of being able to do something, something real that counts, without any physical or mental effort, remarkably soothing. He leans back in his seat, watches the scenery go by, and lets the motion of the car lull him into a trance.

The sights that meet him are unfamiliar. Parts of town he hasn't been to, neon signs, pedestrians in galoshes picking their way through puddles, and traffic lights fragmented through the droplets on the windshield. Everything seems washed clean in the rain and full of potential.

Traffic and urban density thin out as they reach the outskirts of town, and green begins to predominate. Glistening trees conceal what lies just around the curve of the road, until they turn into the curve and a country house greets him, or a convenience store. Finnick wants everything to stay like this, the smallest object benevolent and charming, rather than mundane.

He fights to stay in the mood, because even thinking about how this is a fluke, that they're just buildings and trees like any others, starts to break the spell. _No_ , Finnick tells himself firmly. _Cashmere's here._ She took care of Annie. He's beginning to see how Annie's come so far from the panicking girl he met. Cashmere's just there when you need her, no questions, no judgment, and no pressure when you're not ready. He'd worry about her own needs getting met if he didn't know Annie takes such good care of her.

"Just need to recharge," Cashmere says as she slows and pulls up to a charging station. Finnick pays, as always for their excursions. Which is to say Johanna pays, after Annie gave them a place to stay and fed them, and poured her savings into Finnick's surgery instead of the home improvements she'd been planning to make.

 _"I'm going to pay her back," Johanna promised Finnick. "Gunning for that promotion, and then we're set."_

No word about paying anyone else back, and Finnick doesn't ask.

Cashmere drives on when the car is ready, letting him decide when he's ready to turn back. "The kids going to be okay if we keep going?" Finnick asks, holding his breath. This trance is a fragile thing.

"If it doesn't look like we'll be back before the bus drops them off, I'll just find a phone and call the neighbors across the street. We have a system worked out."

 _Not a problem_ , her easy tone says, and Finnick chooses to believe her. He'll probably never have another day like this, where everything is simple.

Finnick's the one who spots a restaurant that looks appealing, and they have a late lunch of sandwiches. On a whim, Finnick orders a sundae for them to share, and he eats his full share. Today is going to be perfect, he's determined. If by some miracle he's wrong and days like this start happening all the time, breaking his diet will be a small price to pay.

Cashmere laughs when their spoons clink on each other as they reach for the same cherry. Finnick takes it and lifts his spoon to her mouth, laughing when a maneuver that involves her leaning forward at the same time as he moves his spoon up ends with whipped cream on her nose. She has to retaliate in kind, of course, and they feed each other the rest of the sundae, until they finish off with a thorough napkin-scrubbing.

Finnick turns his face from side to side for her to inspect. "Did I get everything?"

Cashmere answers with a kiss, and his arm goes comfortably around her shoulders as they get up to leave.

"I'll just call and give them a heads-up that I may be late getting home, and they should have the kids come over until Annie's home."

Finnick hesitates beside Cashmere while she makes her quick call at the pay phone, then reaches over to make his own call. "Jo? Do you mind renting a car and picking up Annie today? Cashmere and I are on an excursion. Yes, we're having fun."

Even after hanging up, he's calculating how long they can stay before they have to decide whether Annie's going to get an unpleasant surprise when she gets off work.

Cashmere puts her arm back around him. "Annie'll be fine," she assures him with surprisingly keen mind-reading. "She likes telling Johanna about her day."

"Yeah?" Something warm wells up inside Finnick. If Annie's been telling Cashmere that she likes Johanna...Finnick breathes a little easier.

The warm feeling stays with him in the car. They're really out in the country now, with the sheep and the crops and the occasional house or silo. Finnick thinks of Johanna and her managing of the developers who write the code to study the genetics of grain for farmers to grow the food to feed the country, and he smiles at every golden field they pass.

When it starts to get dark and Cashmere still hasn't asked if he wants to turn back, Finnick realizes something. She's not just being accommodating, though she is a sweetheart. She's on a mission, every bit as much as Johanna finding a job and learning to tolerate touch, and Annie feeding him and getting inside his head to find where it hurts. Cashmere's organizing today on the fly, making sure all her people are taken care of, her wife and her kids and...Finnick. She'll drive all night if that's what it takes, and he doesn't doubt that she can do it.

He stays in this paralysis, unable to make a simple decision, until Cashmere pulls over onto the shoulder of the road and, in the same fluid motion, unbuckles her seatbelt to shift over into his lap. It's this that makes him realize that he's been taking great shaky breaths that aren't quite sobs.

"Do you want to go home?" Cashmere wraps her arms around him, and he feels both better and worse to have it driven home that he's surrounded by an army of three women—four if you count the one who's dead—who will move mountains to make sure he gets what he needs, and will cheerfully deliver a beatdown to anyone who gets in the way.

"No. Yes." Finnick buries his face in her hair, breathing in the memories of every other time he's come here for comfort. "I've just been moody lately. I didn't want today to end. I was feeling good. Better than I've felt in a long time."

"We can find a place to stay, easy. Or sleep in the car if that's where you're comfortable. I don't mind, I've slept in much worse."

 _So have I,_ Finnick wants to say through the tears. _I slept on the streets in the rain, and someone always took me in. I slept on the bank of a river with acid burning my mouth and woke up to kill a girl you trained so I could go home. I slept in a hovercraft with my skin covered in burns and my brain shocked and Mags dead and Annie hunted, and you held me while I cried._

"Maybe? We could make another phone call home, let them know." It's not really fair to Annie to expect her to come home from work, pick up the kids from the neighbors, supervise them while making dinner, put them to bed, get them off to school in the morning, and cope with her anxieties alone, just so Finnick can run away with Cashmere on a whim. And Johanna's the one funding it, so she should at least get some warning.

By this point, Finnick's already convinced himself that he's not enjoying this any more and there's no point in staying, except that he hates to end on this note.

Johanna's not in the office, and she doesn't pick up the phone at home no matter how long he lets it ring. Finnick sighs when he passes it to Cashmere. That's it. When she talks to Annie, he'll tell her to say that they're coming home.

Cashmere smiles when she hears the update from Annie, though, and she keeps saying, "Oh, good," and "That's great," so Finnick waits. Maybe Annie's sharing good news. Cashmere finishes with "He's right here," and hands the phone back.

Finnick almost drops it when he hears Johanna's voice. "That's right, I'm pitching in with the cooking and the fish spawn." She sounds amused. "I'm expanding their vocabulary while I talk about my co-workers."

His heart lifts, and Finnick finds himself asking, "Do we have enough to cover a room for two for a night?"

"What's the point of being married to a manager of engineers who couldn't organize their way out of a paper bag, if not so she can support you in the style to which you've become accustomed? Of course we do, don't worry about it."

Finnick laughs. "I hate to break it to you, but I expect a lot more crystalware on the table, not to mention jewels." It stings just a little to remember being the plaything of the Capitol elite, but not so much that he can't joke about it with Johanna, and know that it's her way of saying it's all right. "I'll be home tomorrow."

"I can come out to wherever you are," Johanna offers, more seriously. "The spawn'll be in bed soon anyway."

"I know you can," Finnick says with heartfelt gratitude. "I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."

"All right, then. Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Johanna drawls, and Finnick's laughing hard when she says suddenly, "Just a sec, Annie wants to talk to you. I have to go stir her pot."

"Spoil my honeybee a little, please," Annie requests when Johanna's handed over the phone. "She's always happy when she tells me about your outings. See you soon, and try to do something Johanna would do. I keep saying you had to grow up way too young."

That's Annie's way of saying it's all right that he sprang this on her out of the blue. That he's doing something spontaneous for no other reason than that it makes him feel better, and that that's what she's been trying to get him to do for years.

And now Finnick feels better about not going home tonight, because she and Johanna can bond over their jobs and helping each other, and it'll be good for both of them, especially Johanna.

Finnick tucks his arm around Cashmere when he hangs up. "Let's go see about finding ourselves a nice bed for the night, then."

* * *

"Did some shopping," Johanna explains when she comes in the door carrying bags.

Finnick sits up straighter in bed. "Good! Get anything nice for yourself? Or are we talking milk and toilet paper?"

"Are you calling me boring? Them's fightin' words," Johanna quips. "Stay where you are, I got you something." She sets the bags down by the fridge where he can't see them from his angle and pours herself a glass of water. Watching, Finnick prepares to give her a back massage.

"I retract my question and replace it with: you didn't get me a pet grizzly, did you?"

"Killer whale," Johanna says, then pops the painkiller. "Definitely a killer whale."

Kicking off her shoes, she grabs one of the bags and brings it over to the bed. "Close your eyes. No peeking."

Finnick obeys. He gasps when something heavy and soft falls around his shoulders. The mattress rocks when Johanna sinks onto it beside him. "You're hard to shop for. And this probably touches some nerve from the past, but hell."

Opening his eyes, Finnick sees that he's enveloped in a giant blanket of silver-gray fur. "Silver fox," he says without thinking. Then, more tenderly, he points out, "You're always wrapping me up."

Johanna picks at the fur. "It's faux. And it's the only thing I have that I know you like. Then I saw you holding Annie's bedraggled disaster of a fur coat when you were on her couch. It was this or jewels."

"Hey, I gave her that bedraggled disaster. And it's been on a lot of adventures. Thank you, I do like it when you wrap me up. And now that we live here, I like pretending that it's colder than it is." Finnick opens up the wrap and holds it out with his left arm, inviting her in. "Now tell me what you got for yourself."

Johanna shifts onto his lap, and Finnick closes the blanket around them. "Heat packs for my back. They're in one of the bags."

"By the fridge?" When Johanna nods, Finnick rolls his eyes. "And you're over here. I love you, Johanna, but sometimes you're an idiot."

Johanna elbows him, then winces. "I don't need it now. I'm waiting for the painkiller to kick in, then I'm hauling in the surprise from the car."

The upside of Johanna being so pathologically independent is that Finnick doesn't have to feel like he's not being asked to bring it in because he's useless. Even if he were at his prime, she'd be hauling the heaviest objects around and scowling at anyone who dared offer to help. So he just relaxes.

"Let me get one, though," Finnick insists. "I want to see."

Johanna huffs as only she can. "I _just_ got comfortable. Also, it's extremely obnoxious that you're almost a foot taller than I am, but...at least you have large hands."

"Yes. Where would you like them?"

"Lower back," Johanna answers. She groans. "Yes, there. Firmer."

Her pain is centered in her upper back, so if it's the lower back she wants him pressing on, the upper back must be sharp today. "So what'd you get that's in the car?"

Johanna hesitates, then answers with a question. "You went on an adventure yesterday?"

She's not trying to make him feel defensive, but for so many years, any action Finnick took that wasn't thoroughly calculated meant death and danger, and he feels defensive anyway. "I was relaxed," he explains. "Mostly because of the car and the way I could lean back, cross my legs, not move, and not think, and still be in motion."

"We can get a car," Johanna offers.

"I'm afraid I won't be able to recapture it," Finnick confesses. "That's why I didn't want it to end. It took me by surprise. And by the end, all I could think about was how it was never going to happen again, and I was being ridiculous, and I shouldn't have twisted everyone's plans like that with no notice..."

"Did you not want to come back?" Johanna asks. "We can change things up, get a car, get a nicer place, whatever you want. I've been so focused on making money that I haven't put any thought into spending it, but don't let that stop you."

Now Finnick understands the sudden shopping spree. "Yes, I wanted to come back. I just sometimes feel like I need to get outside of my own head. How were things with you and Annie? I didn't think you liked the spawn."

"Nothing against those particular spawn, just spawn in general. But they're getting older, and it was fine. Annie and I chatted. Mostly not about you, though she does think you should see a therapist."

"I know. And I keep saying I don't think I can talk to anyone I can't touch, and she keeps saying that'll end in a lawsuit, so...It's fine. I'm finding things that make me feel...sheltered. Some of which are brought to me in bags."

Johanna laughs, and he can feel the vibrations against his chest. "Wait till you see the killer whale."

"Now I'm seriously worried. What's in the car?"

"Just a chest of drawers. We don't have to camp out here. I have things I'm saving up for, but one of them is a nicer place, and you should have some say too."

"Have you not been furnishing the place because you thought I wouldn't stick around? And then when I started talking about feeling sheltered, you started buying things?"

Johanna makes an unhappy sound. "Something like that."

Finnick sighs, and then he laughs, because it's laugh or cry. "Here's an idea. Why don't you move again, and I'll follow you again, and maybe this time it'll sink in?"

She laughs a little, but not convincingly. "You make it sound so obvious. I know I pay the bills, but I work all the time, and I'm not good at the touchy-feely shit. You know this is all forced and calculated, right? I'm not saying I hate it, I'm saying I know I'm not good at it, because I still have to think about it."

"But you're intense at it," Finnick tells her, "and that makes a difference. Is there anything you get out of this besides bills to pay and new skills to learn?"

Johanna leans her head against his shoulder. "You make things easier? I was always afraid of slowing down, pacing myself. Then you came along and paced yourself, and I actually paid attention. Because everyone else said I needed to take it easy, tone it down, chill out, not work so hard...and whether they meant well or not, I wanted to claw their eyes out. But you had a drive to match mine, and you would no more tell me to tone it down than you would yourself.

"And not that you didn't eventually drive yourself into the ground. But I didn't notice that at the time—what I noticed was you falling asleep next to me all the time, and you weren't even embarrassed about it. And you were always the one calling a halt on long marches. So I started to believe that maybe I could take a break occasionally."

"And this is something I still do?" Finnick asks.

Johanna nods. "Like taking my painkillers and getting back support before I haul in the furniture. Daily massages. More important for convincing me to relax than for actual pain relief."

Finnick still hates that he can't do more pain relief. He hates that there are problems he can't solve. But he's overwhelmed with relief to know that just having him around makes a difference.

 _That's all I wanted,_ he thinks. _I wanted to live with Annie and know that, even if she was having panic attacks, at least we weren't alone. I wanted Katniss to come to me for moral support, and know that whatever happened, we had each other's backs. I wanted her to be glad she didn't have to carry all her loads alone any more._

When Finnick feels his throat starting to tighten, he instinctively starts trying to suppress the tears. Then he reminds himself, _New lungs. New lungs. Johanna got you a new pair of lungs._

Even so, he can't yet bring himself to stop fighting it. "Can you..."

"Yes?"

"Curtains?" Finnick asks.

"You want it dark?" Obligingly, Johanna hops up and pulls the curtains above the table closed, and also the ones by the door. After so many years in District Seven, he's slowly started to lose his conviction that he's always on display, whether to his fans or to the hidden surveillance cameras, but he still has a hard time when he's doing something he's not allowed to show on camera.

Then Johanna rejoins him under the wrap, where, without moving or saying a word, she manages to communicate that she's holding her post while he cries.

 _That's all I wanted. I did everything I was asked. I fought, I spied, I protected Peeta, I sold my body, I let Mags go, I let Annie go, I went wherever I was needed, and I never stopped smiling._

That was all he wanted, and it was too much to ask. Mags left, Annie left, Katniss went through a whirlwind of emotions, not one of which involved wanting him around.

All he's ever had is prickly Johanna, who takes years to warm up to you, but holds her post to the death once she does.

Self-pity doesn't make it any easier to stop crying. A long time passes before Finnick finally sniffles, and draws his sleeve across his face.

"I keep doing that," he tells Johanna. Then he half laughs. _At least I know why. Poor Cashmere just thought she was defective._ "Annie says she thinks it's a good thing, that I couldn't let myself do it before. First because if I'd let myself think about anything other than how lucky I was to have gotten off easy compared to everyone else, the whole performance would have crumbled, and then because when the war was over, I was badly traumatized the first time I started giving in to this and I almost suffocated."

Johanna was there for that episode, the one where they learned crying could kill him.

"Hmph." Johanna takes the end of the fur wrap that's fallen askew and pulls it back over their shoulders. "She hadn't seen you cry before this?"

"Oh, she had. So have you. But not like this. Not for myself."

For the first time, Finnick's letting himself feel the unfairness of it all. Years of accepting that it was his job to absorb all the trauma, because he could handle it so much better than everyone else. He had to live with abandoning Mags, because Katniss couldn't live with abandoning Peeta.

He had to be scrupulously fair and never complain about Katniss, because Johanna couldn't forgive. He had to leave Annie to her panic attacks, because she couldn't handle having him around.

He had to work the Capitol alone, because there was no one else who could whore and spy at the same time. He had to hold it together without a confidant, because if he broke character, he'd break altogether.

And what was holding him together through all this? Mags' pride. Annie's understanding. Johanna's determination. Whatever scraps of these he could snatch up for himself. Just enough to keep him going.

"So you've been talking to Annie?" Johanna asks.

"Yeah." Finnick doesn't want to say that Annie knows him better than Johanna, because there's a lot that Johanna knows that Annie doesn't. But there's no question Annie's better at insights and advice. "She knew me back when a lot of this shit was happening. And she knew Mags."

Johanna tightens her lips in understanding. Finnick's still struggling with the memories of what Mags asked him to do. Her need versus his need. The revolution versus her love for him. His unceasing demands for more assignments versus her wisdom. _She should have known I'd end up like this. I was too young to have any idea what I was getting into. Did she think I'd die in the front lines before it came to this?_

 _She should have known I couldn't imagine her being proud of me unless I gave it_ _all_ _I had. I didn't know I'd end up like this, but she should have. Did she care?_

The worst part is not being sure whether to wish Mags were here or not. Would she make him feel better about being incapacitated, or worse?

"We talked this afternoon," Finnick says, changing the subject. Annie's easier than Mags, because he knows for sure she's making him feel better. "She got home early." He's suspicious about the coincidence of her getting off work early the very next day after he and Cashmere disappeared for a night, but he didn't ask. "She said it was good I asked for...well, everything I asked for yesterday. She said I don't ask for nearly enough."

"You don't," Johanna says firmly. "That's why I had to bring you a blanket and wrap you up. It's the _only_ thing you've given me to go on."

"It's not that I think there's anything any of the three of you won't give me," Finnick tells her. "It's just hard to think of anything, when everything triggers some raw memory of the past, and I don't even know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I'm starting to wonder if maybe that's why I'm so desperate for touch. It's the only thing I've ever known how to ask for. I wasn't always this needy, you know."

"When did it start?" Johanna asks.

Finnick tries to remember. "After Mags died, I think, and everything went to hell in the arena. I was worried sick over Annie, and guilty over you, and nothing was working out right with Katniss, and Cashmere and I were clinging to each other like there was no tomorrow. Then she left, and Annie left, and it went up another notch. That's when I got dumped in your lap."

"That's when you became my mission," Johanna corrects. "So you think you're using touch to try to make up for everything else that's missing in your life?"

Now that she's stated it so baldly, it seems obvious. Just as obvious is the conclusion _and it's not working._

Finnick says unhappily, "I don't know what else I can do."

"Well, keep working on figuring it out," Johanna orders. "I got instructions to keep you from burning out, and then I got absolutely no tips on how to do it other than not let you wither of touch starvation. And look what happened."

"Yeah, sorry about that." Finnick smiles wryly. "If I had any idea what I was doing, you wouldn't have been asked in the first place."

Johanna laughs with him.

* * *

For her anniversary with Cashmere, Annie cooks a big dinner, naturally. Last year's was stressful, with the house so cramped and Finnick not talking, but she promises Cashmere that this year will be better. "I'd love to invite Raych and Nessa over. We hardly ever see them any more, and they were at our wedding, for goodness' sake."

Cashmere smiles. "I didn't even know we could get married until we came here and they took us in. And they were married! To each other!"

"Exactly." Annie remembers when the idea of two married women had blown her mind too. "So just tell me what you want. You pick the meal and I'll pick dessert."

"So many possibilities." Cashmere rubs her hands together, making Annie laugh. "I'll have to think about this one."

As she sits at the kitchen table and picks through the cookbook, looking for inspiration, Annie stands behind her chair with her arms around her wife, thinking how very lucky she is.

Cashmere echoes her thoughts as she points to a page. "I'm so spoiled. How about this one? Can we afford it?"

Annie leans over her shoulder and reads. Linguine with mussels, mushrooms, and white wine sauce. "Of course we can. It's our anniversary. I might have to substitute the sauce, though, for Nessa."

"Really?" Cashmere looks at her in surprise, and then shame. "I'm so sorry, I thought the alcohol evaporated when you cooked it."

Annie reassures her, "No, no, it does. Most of it. But all of it? Enough to be sure it won't give Nessa a relapse? Maybe it's my anxiety again, but I'd rather not take the risk."

"You should pick, then. You decide." Cashmere's head is hanging, and Annie has to hug her tight.

"No, it'll be wonderful. It was a perfect choice. I'll just make a different white sauce, just to be safe. It's going to be the best anniversary ever."

For the whole week prior, Annie walks around glowing. One of her co-workers even comments on it. "I've been married five years!" she explains.

The only thing that throws her for a loop is Finnick congratulating her two days before and asking if they're doing anything special.

"Just dinner. Cashmere wants linguine."

His eyes glow, and he waggles his eyebrows. "Am I invited?"

"Of course," Annie falters, "but we're having guests. If you're comfortable with that."

Finnick hesitates. "How many?"

"Just two. The two who hosted us in our first year here."

"Oh, I'd love to meet them. I've heard only good things."

Annie relaxes a little. Finnick's actually up to meeting people? Such a good sign. "Oh, and seafood," she warns him. "We're having seafood."

Finnick laughs and wrinkles his nose. "I'll survive. But whyyy?"

"You're the one sick of it, not me. Believe me, I did not grow up eating mussels, duck, or lobster."

They stick out their tongues at each other, and it's decided.

The day of the celebration, Annie takes off work. She calls Johanna at work before sending Cashmere over to pick up Finnick. "I'll be late at the office today," Johanna says right off. "Finnick says he's staying over at your place this evening?"

"Yeah, we're having an anniversary dinner. Me and Cashmere," she clarifies.

"Oh, congratulations. I'll get you a present."

"Um, actually. I was going to ask if I could get a couple of extra things for tonight? Nothing too extravagant, just more ingredients than I would usually put together in one meal?"

"No problem. File an expense report and I'll sign off on it," Johanna answers.

Annie giggles. "Are you pretending you're not making personal calls at work, young lady?"

"Never mind that," Johanna jokes, then grows serious. "But really, I'll pay for the whole dinner if you want. My gift. Just feed him, okay?"

Annie promises. Finnick's put on a few pounds since regaining his ability to breathe while chewing, but he's still dramatically underweight. Figuring out what to feed him that won't set off some agonizing dilemma over whether he wants to get back in shape or let himself go is a puzzle these days.

She can only be grateful that Johanna's in a position to fund anything and everything she wants to feed Finnick. Cooking for five is hardly more expensive than four...if the five are eating the same thing.

So it's with relief and some trepidation that Annie sends Cashmere and Finnick off to the store with a shopping list. Someday maybe she'll be able to go along. For now, it's easier to stay home and start preparing the evening meal.

When the kids are home from school and everyone's just waiting for the evening excitement to begin, they sit on the rug and play a family board game, while Finnick stretches out on the couch, immersed in his own thoughts. Maybe someday he'll be able to join them.

For now, it's enough that when the doorbell rings, he's sitting at the table with her and Cashmere, and he rises to greet the guests. The kids are spending the night over at their respective best friends', which they were so excited about that Annie could hardly get them to sleep last night. Cashmere said Maggie ran out of the car without even saying goodbye, and Annie laughed and told her not to take it personally. Anything rare is a treat for a child that age.

Cashmere introduces everyone, while Annie puts the food on the table. No alcohol, of course, for Nessa's sake. Linguine at Cashmere's request, and the side dishes Annie came up with.

"The salad. Spinach, goat cheese, nuts, and pears, with seasoning. Raisin bread, not too sweet. And stuffed tomatoes. These ones with sour cream and chives. These with cucumber, basil, and parsley. And over here, rosemary, onions, and garlic." Her favorite, Cashmere's, and Finnick's, minus the sesame seeds he likes that are impossible to get here. Annie reminds herself to thank Johanna for the variety.

"You have outdone yourself," Nessa compliments her. She gestures at the spread of food and says to Finnick, "We were so disappointed when she moved out. You too, dear," she assures Cashmere.

Cashmere grins. "No, I know. All those years taking in students, and you finally figured out you should have been looking for good cooks. I got it right the first time."

Everyone laughs at her self-satisfaction, and they make suitably impressed sounds when Annie tells them Cashmere grew the basil and the spinach.

Then Raych launches into a brief explanation of the practice of hosting foreign students, for Finnick's benefit. Annie relaxes as Finnick asks all the right questions, and draws them out about their jobs. Nessa waxes enthusiastic about the latest developments in agronomy, and Raych tells funny stories about mistakes in the books she's been editing. Including an embarrassing one that made it past her desk and into print.

Annie's given them a brief, private overview of Finnick's history and medical conditions, enough to steer them away from asking any awkward questions. Which is pretty much any question these days. But they're warm and welcoming to him, and the conversation soon turns into an Annie- and Cashmere-appreciation fest, led by Finnick and encouraged by Raych and Nessa.

"But did they tell you about the time they saved the day together?"

Even blushing under the attention, Annie doesn't miss the fact that Finnick has used his story-telling as an excuse to set his fork down and ignore his food. Ah, well, it's mussels. She tried to make the salad to his taste, but okay, she'll fuss over him later.

"Annie saved the day," Cashmere interjects. "I just kept her alive so she could do her engineering magic."

Annie rolls her eyes affectionately and kicks Cashmere's ankle under the table. "Yes, 'just' kept me alive, no big deal."

"But how have we not heard this story?" Nessa asks.

"Because I wasn't here to tell it," Finnick says with an expansive gesture of his hands.

Watching them, Annie can tell they're quite taken with him, and, well, so is she. She watches fondly as Finnick recounts what he's heard of the lockdown crisis and Annie's rush to start up another generator in time to get the bomb shelter the power to throw up a force field. He builds the suspense so skilfully that everyone pauses between bites to hear how it ends. Even Annie catches herself holding her fork frozen in mid-air, and forces herself to continue eating as she hears how she fought off her demons long enough to run with Cashmere to the power plant, in the middle of a losing battle, to keep the civilians from being taken prisoner.

Only knowing that everyone survived allows Annie to sit through a retelling without feeling sick.

Even so, she has to check. "And everyone made it?"

"Of course." Finnick looks at her with pride and what she knows is awe at her courage. "You saved them. Every one."

Not the ones Cashmere killed. Her own people, even her own student. But then their friends would have been killed. Joule, Beetee, Silica, all of them. After being tortured for information.

"I hate war," she says softly, mostly to Cashmere. "I'm glad we're here."

Cashmere squeezes her hand. "Me too."

After dinner, Finnick clears the table, insisting that Annie and Cashmere are having their anniversary, and Raych and Nessa are guests, and guests aren't meant to do work.

This leaves Annie free to bring out dessert. "Chocolate pie, which you'll notice has a small piece missing, and so I can promise is delicious."

"Of course, you would be a terrible hostess if you didn't do quality inspection beforehand," Finnick says over the sound of running water, his back to her at the sink.

"Of course," Annie agrees. "Whipped cream and raspberries for anyone who wants pie topping."

The water immediately turns off. "Did I hear the sound of raspberries?"

"And if you come sit down, you'll get to taste them."

Annie waits until Finnick is back at the table and popping raspberries straight from the bowl into his mouth, before she opens the cupboard and takes out a top-secret covered plate.

With a flourish, she presents it at the table.

Finnick stares. "That is not what I think it is."

"Maybe not," Annie teases. "You'll have to do the quality inspection yourself."

Reaching out with reddened fingertips, Finnick helps himself. "You did not."

"You tell me," Annie says, smirking.

Raych and Nessa, delving into chocolate pie, are watching the scene with interest.

"You finally learned to make raspberry scones!" Finnick exclaims around a mouthful of the same.

"And it only took me fifteen years."

"When did you make these?!" Finnick is halfway through his and still talking with his mouth full. "I was here all day."

"In the morning, while you and Cashmere were out shopping. Everything about today has been carefully orchestrated."

Finnick shakes his head in wonder. "Whose anniversary is it, anyway?"

Cashmere looks at him tenderly. "I was there for your wedding," she reminds him. "You should be here for our anniversary, at least. I told her to make you something nice."

"I would have anyway, you know that," Annie says. She's perfectly happy right now. No, nothing ever works out exactly as you expect. She wishes her marriage with Finnick had been allowed to thrive instead of withering from a neglect neither of them wanted. But he's here, celebrating peace and survival with her, and Cashmere's here. And every so often, at times like this, Cashmere makes it clear she still wants to think of the three of them as married.

With only a little coaxing, Annie tells the story of her two weddings, with help from those who were there, for the benefit of those who weren't. She thinks it's appropriate that Cashmere was the only one present at both.

All in all, it's a delightful evening. Annie is looking forward to an even more delightful night to follow it up when Raych and Nessa take their leave with smiles and compliments. "Yes, you can have the leftovers," Annie laughs. "They're full of seafood, so I can't send them home with Finnick like I usually do."

Finnick excuses himself once they're gone, and Annie hears him go into the bathroom. Together, Annie and Cashmere clean the kitchen.

"Should I bother putting this away?" Annie asks jokingly, her hand over the quarter of a chocolate pie remaining. "Or just finish it and save the space in the fridge?"

Cashmere laughs, drying the dinner plates she's just scrubbed. "It's been five years, Annie. You eat as much pie as you want."

"I would, if I could fit another bite in." Annie takes a deep breath, but no, she really can't. She starts covering the pie instead. "You'll still love me if I turn into chocolate, right?"

Cashmere's elbows sag as she leans against the edge of the sink, overcome by emotion. "You know there was a time when I couldn't imagine anyone wanting me around for five years."

Hurrying to close the refrigerator door with the pie inside, Annie comes to stand beside Cashmere and lean her head against her arm. "Fifty years. Five hundred. Besides, didn't we unofficially decide you were included in the marriage when Finnick and I had our wedding? That makes it what, eight, no, nine years?"

"We must have lived together for about ten now," Cashmere observes. "We'll have to figure out when our tenth living-together anniversary is." Then she looks up. "Where _is_ Finnick?"

Suddenly chilled, Annie looks around. The kitchen is clean. The house is hushed, now that they've stopped to listen. Only the ticking of the clock on the wall pierces the silence.

Annie shakes herself. It's just her being prey to anxiety again, always imagining the worst. Nothing unusual about needing some privacy after dinner, after all.

But she still can't resist going to check. _He'd better not be throwing up that scone. If this eating...complication...has turned into a disorder, I'm pushing the therapist point a lot harder._

The bathroom door is open, and the light off. Annie hesitates, then realizes she can hear heavy breathing that isn't coming from Cashmere just behind her. She moves fast to the source.

Finnick's bent over the sink in the dark, gripping the edge in his hands. His silhouette is visibly shaking with each shuddering breath, and Annie's heart sinks. She hears Cashmere's gasp, but right now she has only one imperative.

Annie throws her arms around Finnick from behind and holds tight. She doesn't know what's wrong, but she's been here before. Even to his dripping face, which she knows is not tears but cold water he's been splashing on himself, trying to snap out of this. Nothing she can do quite yet, just soothing, wordless noises, until she detects some minute change in his body against hers. "That's right, come on. Let's go sit down."

On the way into the living room, Cashmere hits the light switch, until Annie silently and frantically gestures at her while saying in her calmest voice, "No, let's leave it dark."

"Sorry. Sorry!"

Finnick isn't actually crying, just gasping, and he stretches out on the couch lying down and buries his head in her lap, the way he used to a very long time ago. Before he was dying. It takes Annie back, and suddenly she knows exactly what's wrong. This isn't the devastation that's been racking him lately, or not quite. This is the same exhaustion he used to bring home to her from the Capitol each year. Not upset, not angry, not scared or grieving. Unable to admit that anything at all is wrong. Only drained of everything he had to give, and lost in the transition back to a different world.

Kicking herself, sick with fury that she let this happen on her watch, Annie strokes his hair with fingers that are so steady they feel like they belong to someone else. Someone with the unshakable inner calm she's always longed for. Cashmere is kneeling on the rug in front of the couch, one arm thrown over Finnick's back.

"You were performing tonight," Annie says understandingly once his breathing has quieted. "Weren't you?"

Finnick can't bring himself to speak, but the little choked sound in the back of his throat is answer enough for her.

"There, it's all right. It was too much, too soon, that's all. Next time we'll know better."

Her alien fingers that can do magic at a time like this are only noticing that his hair is long enough to twine gently around, while her stomach is tying itself in knots. She should have known better _this time_ , dammit.

His first social encounter with strangers after years of avoiding being seen like this, while he's still depressed, still trying to figure out who he is and what's changed, and the encounter was the very epitome of smooth and relaxed, and she thought he _wasn't_ performing? She never even questioned the sudden return of the easy charm, when he couldn't even come over and join her and the kids in their game earlier that same afternoon?

"I couldn't stop," Finnick whispers in horror. He shivers a little again, but Cashmere's somehow pressing more of herself against him than Annie would have thought possible. "The mask was on and I couldn't take it off. It was like watching your tribute and knowing they're going to die, knowing exactly what they need to do, and not being able to change a thing. You're just frozen in place, watching and helpless. I couldn't stop."

Annie's never mentored, but she knows that feeling. Mags running into the fog, Finnick collapsing under Peeta, Finnick throwing away a trident that was suddenly a lightning rod as fast as he could—but not fast enough. Finnick with his head on her lap, completely lost. He only knows one way of interacting socially, and that's making it perfect on camera. She'd thought because there was no question of sex, he'd be safe, but no.

Everything is a reminder of the past. And it's incredibly hard to build new modes of engaging with the world, when he has so few reserves to draw on. If eating is so hard he barely made it through Evan's last birthday (but Maggie's was fine), and talking is hard, what was Annie thinking springing a dinner party on him, without even checking in to make sure he was all right?

"You're safe now," is all she can soothe. "Next time we'll know to take it slower. Next time you'll be safer."

"I used to be able to do this," Finnick laments.

"You used to come home to me like this every year," Annie reminds him sharply.

"But only after weeks and months of pressure, not after one little dinner at home. It wasn't even _bad_. I enjoyed the company. It was only afterward that the exhaustion hit me. And I don't know any other way to do this."

Annie remembers, belatedly, that social occasions like this used to be life-or-death affairs for him. A hundred cameras trained on him, a nation watching, and Snow waiting in the wings to give the order for something awful to happen to Mags, or Annie. And Finnick handed in a flawless performance every single time.

No wonder he's been avoiding people. It's not embarrassment. That's just her projecting her reasons for hiding after her televised, publicized panic attacks. Finnick's not her.

"You will," Annie promises. "Cashmere did."

Cashmere nods emphatically.

"We just rushed it, that's all. Next time we'll take it slower and have a plan. Now, I'm going to pack up the rest of the scones and send you home to Johanna. Okay?"

"Okay," Finnick whispers. "I'm sorry for ruining-"

"You didn't ruin a thing," Annie says firmly. "I'm sorry I wasn't paying closer attention. Now get some rest tonight and don't worry about it."

As she's heading into the kitchen, Annie hears Cashmere shift up onto the couch next to Finnick and say softly, "You're welcome to spend the night here."

She doesn't hear Finnick's response, but when she returns with a bag of scones, he rises and accepts them from her. Controlling the disappointment on her face, Cashmere walks out to the car with him.

The moment the front door closes, Annie picks up the phone to give Johanna a quick heads-up.

* * *

Cashmere returns with an unhappy face, and she folds her arms defensively across her chest while she and Annie stand facing each other.

Annie, who'd been preparing to say, very gently, "After all, he is married to _her_ ," bites her tongue and says instead, "I know. I wish things had worked out differently too."

"I worry about him."

 _So do we all_. "Give him time. We've come a long way from him being convinced that his life ended when he stopped being able to sacrifice everything he has to Panem. He just needs to figure out where he wants to go from here."

"I don't see why he can't live with us," Cashmere says stubbornly.

"He could have," Annie reminds her. "He's the one who decided when it was time to move out."

"Do you think I should have 'moved on' too?" Cashmere challenges.

"No," Annie says, with some reluctance. "Hour for hour, he's spending more time with you than with anyone, and it's doing him a world of good. Besides, I was the one who decided I wanted you there on my wedding night with Finnick. Aside from the fact that I was clearly psychic-" This gets a reluctant smile from Cashmere. "I do miss those days too. Though I will say I worried about him more then, in a way, because he wouldn't admit anything was wrong. At least now he's slowing down and keeping an eye on how things affect him."

Annie holds out her arms. "Now, are we married, or are we married? I know you don't get excited about sex with women, but I've been looking forward to tonight all day."

Cashmere glows as she comes over. "We'll be married forever." Touching her forehead to Annie's, she says, "And I wouldn't say that, not any more."

"What?!"

At Annie's dumbfounded expression, Cashmere hesitates. "Is that okay?" Her smile starts to dim, and Annie hastily pulls her close.

"Of course, of course it's okay!" Annie squeezes her reassuringly. "It's better than okay! I just-when did this start?"

Cashmere smiles at her. "Well, Annie," she says patiently, "if you keep giving me the best sex of my life, I'm going to start looking forward to it eventually."

"The best? Really?"

"I think it's the first time I've been able to just _have sex_ ," she explains. "I'm not trying to get anything out of it, I'm not hoping you'll stay with me if you like it enough, I'm not worried you'll leave, and I'm not trying to make the most of it before you leave. I'm just...having sex. And it's perfect."

Annie's heart races while she gets used to the idea. "Maybe I was trying too hard not to read too much wishful thinking into your reactions. And I didn't ask after the first time, because I didn't want you to think I felt like anything was missing. If you were happy with the arrangement, I was happy. But now that you're excited...I'm excited!"

Laughing, Cashmere says, "I'm excited."

Getting comfortable in bed, just as awareness of everything but Cashmere starts to fade away, it comes home to Annie that as much as she may care or worry about anyone else, her life in this house and this family is still complete.

Nothing missing. This is everything she needs, right here.


	4. Chapter 4

Coming down the front steps, Cashmere hears Finnick stop suddenly behind her. He gestures toward the orderly red row of flowers lining the bed directly in front of the porch. "Are those the flowers you were talking about?"

Cashmere nods. Forgetting her pink dancing gown, their plans, everything, she comes out from under the overhang and into the drizzle, and kneels beside her flowers in the garden. Finnick joins her. "One for Penny," she tells him, her hand hovering over it. "I realized later, talking to Annie, that I probably wouldn't have gotten in trouble at the academy for visiting her. Anyway, all she did was not live up to expectations. But to me, at the time, that was the worst possible thing you could do. And now I feel bad for abandoning her. So she gets a flower."

Gently, barely brushing the petals, she cradles each as she moves down the row. "This one for Gloss. Grace. My babies, the ones I never met. Donn."

"But Grace is okay!" Finnick exclaims. "She's in West Panem, she survived."

"We know. You told us. But Annie misses her," Cashmere explains simply. "Letters take so long, and Annie feels like they're strangers again. She wanted a flower for Grace. And my real babies are in the house, and they wouldn't like to be called babies any more than the older ones would. But the older ones get their flowers too."

Finnick nods, and puts his arm around her shoulders.

"Tell me if you want any planted," Cashmere urges. He never talks of his war days, not even to Annie, and it breaks her heart.

"Ashe," Finnick whispers thickly. "Gale. Maybe Cinna." She isn't surprised when she doesn't recognize all the names. All she can do is kiss him until his choked breath starts coming normally again and he can speak. "I'm just glad none of the flowers are for you, honeybee. I'm glad if I got one person out alive."

"I'm glad there isn't one for you this year," Cashmere answers.

Just then, the drizzle turns furious, pouring down from the sky in buckets. Standing up, Cashmere realizes the dirt on the front of her gown is mud now. Brushing at it just smears it. Sighing, she looks up at the front door, shielding her eyes from the rain with one hand, and resigns herself to going back inside, changing clothes, and dashing to the car if the rain hasn't stopped by then. Finnick's getting drenched too, but then, wet pants are easier. Skirts cling to your legs. It may be sexy, but they chafe, and they make it hard to move.

"Tired, kitten?" Finnick asks sympathetically. "We can skip the dancing, find a place to spend the night."

Immediately, Cashmere straightens and puts on her smile. "No, no, I'll be fine. We have plans, and I got all dressed up-"

"Who'd you get dressed up for, then?" Finnick prods. "Someone who's paying? Or you and me?"

"You and me, I guess," Cashmere answers. "But won't you be disappointed?"

"How disappointed are you when I'm tired? I spend whole afternoons napping on your couch, and sometimes you come let me put my head on your lap." He puts his hand on her shoulder and squeezes. "Let's just find a hotel and call it an evening."

Cashmere smiles as they walk to the car, muddy clothes and all. "Well, this way you'll get me all to yourself."

"I'll get to watch you relax, dove," he corrects. "No performing."

Cashmere blinks, and then her smile falls. That was a line, wasn't it? Always put a positive twist on the unexpected. Always make your lover feel like the center of the universe. "Was I? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to treat you like _them_..." She hangs her head, getting behind the wheel.

"Hush." Finnick rubs her shoulder. "We're reclaiming dating for us. It's going to take some time. And we can stop whenever you say the word. This isn't important unless we're both having fun."

"No, I don't want to stop," Cashmere insists. "I enjoy going out with you, Annie will tell you. I just got hit by exhaustion, out of the blue just now."

"So we'll take it easy tonight." Finnick shrugs. "That's part of reclaiming. Just like dressing up for yourself." He takes one of the cloths he grabbed from the glove compartment and passes it to Cashmere, who dries her face as best she can.

"For me and for you," she says thoughtfully. "It's like a victory, isn't it?" She should have remembered, Finnick's doesn't need anything from her other than someone to hold onto. Excursions are fun, he likes to chatter while he helps her around the house and yard if he's not too tired, but all he really needs is to have her close.

"We are victors," Finnick agrees. "And survivors. Let's go to the Jade Resort, then."

"Are you sure? A bed and breakfast would be cheaper."

"It would be cozier," Finnick acknowledges. "And most of the time I like that. But sometimes I like the anonymity of the hotel. Everyone walking fast, carrying their briefcases, staring straight ahead without even sparing a glance at you. No small talk, no attention at all."

Finnick winks at her. "I can pretend I'm sneaking off and having a liaison with you in the Capitol, because we want to, instead of being responsible."

Cashmere smiles back. "And we can afford it?"

"Johanna says as long as we don't do it too often, sure."

Cashmere doesn't love that Johanna's the one paying for these excursions. Everyday things like charging up the car, that's not so bad. But when they go clothes shopping and Finnick pays, Cashmere knows where the money's coming from. Still, she doesn't say anything, because it's worth seeing Finnick glow.

* * *

And he can't stop glowing. In their room at the Jade Resort, they drape their wet clothes on a radiator and hop into the bed so fast it makes Cashmere laugh.

They shiver at first, but they're warm again soon, skin on skin.

"Sunshine," she murmurs, and Finnick holds her close, letting her bask in it.

At length, Cashmere gives a deep sigh. "I think sometimes I don't realize how tired I am. Or why. Everything's so much better here, I'm not supposed to be this tired any more." It makes her feel ungrateful. Marriage, Annie, two kids, a house and a garden, no job because Annie said they can afford for her to stay home...why is she so tired she can't even enjoy an evening out that she was looking forward to?

Finnick strokes her hair. At least he doesn't mind. At least she can be sure of that. "I try to think of it as being allowed to be tired here. Before, it didn't matter if I was tired, I still had to keep going."

"Maybe." She's quiet a bit longer, thinking. "My therapist did say I have a hard time figuring out what I'm feeling, because I'm so tuned in to what everyone else is thinking and feeling."

"And this is where you relax enough to realize how tired you are?"

This is where she lives simply in the moment. With Annie, she's working to build a future. With Finnick, she tries to accept and forget that he could be gone any day. If Johanna gets a job offer in another city, or decides to move back to Panem, Finnick will go with her. Cashmere has no more illusions on that front.

"I guess so." Cashmere takes a deep breath. "I think he was right, I don't always understand myself. I always feel different, not like anyone else. Then when I'm with you, I don't feel quite so different."

Finnick's arms tighten around her. "I know what you mean. Sometimes I think about what it would have been like if I'd been trained in the District One academy, and I suspect I'd have been a lot like you. And if you'd been in Four, with Mags, I think you'd have made a fantastic spy in the Capitol."

Cashmere nods. "Annie said exactly that. She said I'd have more confidence if I'd been a Four Career. It's strange to imagine."

"I don't know if you'd have come out with my issues," Finnick says. "But I do wish when I was operating in the Capitol that I could have had you as my partner in crime. It would have been better for both of us. Johanna did a bit of it—she certainly had the confidence, and no inhibitions—but she was busy saying no, something I never did."

"It's not fair," Cashmere grumbles before she catches herself, "I wish I had the confidence, but I don't want to end up-" Remembering who she's talking to, she chokes back the rest of the sentence.

"Like Johanna?" Finnick finishes for her. He sounds amused and understanding, not mad at all. "I don't think you would. I think you could have all the confidence in the world, and you'd still be a sweetheart. It's honeybee, remember, not just honey."

"Hm." Cashmere thinks about that. Maybe. He's always been nice to her, after all, and there's nobody in the world more confident than Finnick. And even Annie's been known to have a temper. Not everyone's Johanna Mason.

"Anyway," Finnick concludes, "out of all the Careers who had to sell our bodies, I'm convinced you and I found each other because there wasn't anyone we had more in common with."

"Even my brother," Cashmere agrees. "I'm sorry I lashed out at you, by the way. You were probably right."

"No, I'm sorry I brought it up," Finnick says. "It was too soon."

Cashmere nods but say nothing. She doesn't really want to think about Gloss's life. She plants flowers now. That's all.

A heavy silence follows while they grieve their dead, until Cashmere's stomach grumbles. Finnick laughs.

Smiling, she untangles herself a little from him and sits up in bed. "We should be able to get room service-"

"Until ten," Finnick supplies. He passes her the menu from the bedside table next to him. "Another half hour."

"Better order now, then." Cashmere inspects the menu, looking for something cheap.

"I think I'll have pasta, squash, and garlic bread." She hands the menu back to him. "Do you want anything?"

Cashmere feels more than hears Finnick's quiet, almost subliminal, sigh. Then he chooses the split pea soup. If she were Annie, or even Johanna, she'd argue, try to get him to eat more. If she were smarter, more confident.

But she's Cashmere, and all she does is pick up the phone, which is on her side, and order.

Next to her, she feels Finnick slump a little against the pillow and lean his head against her shoulder. He knows she knows he's not eating enough, and she can feel his gratitude to her for not making it into a confrontation.

So maybe it's good that she's Cashmere.

When the food arrives, she eats hers with gusto, and mops up the last of the sauce with her bread. "Almost as good as Annie's," she concludes with a smile.

Finnick's managed to finish his soup meanwhile, which at least means Cashmere won't have to have that part of the uncomfortable exchange with Johanna tomorrow, when she gets quizzed about the outing.

"You never had any problems around food?" he asks, setting aside his bowl and approaching the elephant in the room. "You had to look good longer than I did."

"Oh," Cashmere says, "but I never had to make choices about food. I ate what they put in front of me at the academy. They had the diet all calculated for us. It was easy."

She's not in the same kind of shape she was at her peak, but not bad for her forties, with all the gardening, and she has different goals now, like making Annie happy. She eats what Annie puts in front of her, and it's just as easy.

Finnick sighs. "Not so much us. There were guidelines on getting a nutritious balance and not eating too much junk, but mostly our diet was out of our control, and any food was considered better than none. It was only after I had winnings and choices that I started having to fight my sweet tooth. Mags eventually came up with the two bites rule, said the energy I would spend fighting temptation all the time would cost me more than indulging in moderation.

"Now I'm stuck trying to make decisions at every meal, only I can never tell what the right decision is, because I don't know what the goal is any more. I'm not undereating because I'm trying to lose weight, exactly. I just can't cope with not being an athlete, but I certainly couldn't handle trying to be one, and I don't know what else to aim for, or how to aim for it. And I don't even know where to start when it comes to how I feel about my looks. So every bite is exhausting."

He sounds so defeated that Cashmere turns and pulls herself half onto his lap, legs across his, arms around him, head on his shoulder. He holds tight to her, and then says, with some effort, "It'll be all right. I just need to figure out where I go from here."

"You know something?" Cashmere says thoughtfully, still trying her best to comfort him with closeness. "I think the best thing anyone ever did for me was you asking me to take care of Annie. Before that, I was just trying to to stay alive by doing whatever Plutarch wanted, while wondering if maybe I shouldn't hand myself over to the Capitol and try to get them to believe I really didn't mean to defect. I couldn't make myself, but I kept wondering if it was the right thing to do.

"But then I had Annie, and I had a purpose again. After that, any time I had a decision to make, I just turned it into taking care of Annie. I never had to worry about what to do during the day when I had no ideas for myself. I just stayed close to her and kept her safe. I had a much harder time with clothes than food, but then I settled on bland bodyguard clothes that would camouflage easily. Now I have things that I want for myself, but when I didn't, it kept me from being totally lost. I guess I'm saying it bought me time to figure it out."

She can feel the changes in Finnick's body, the little unknotting of muscles one by one, the sighing out. He doesn't smile, but he presses his forehead to hers and gives a deep groan that turns into a sigh. "Thank you for telling me that," he says quietly. "I needed to hear it. Maybe I just need to find a way of buying myself time."

"It worked for me," she says. "It's easier than having to figure everything out right away. Even when I married Annie...I wanted to more than anything, but I wouldn't do it for a long time because it didn't feel like the right thing to do. She had decided we had to live the rest of our lives without expecting to see you again, but I couldn't. Finally, I told myself that if you weren't coming back, I had to take care of her, and that was how I finally gave myself permission to do what I wanted."

"Thank you for that too," Finnick says softly. "And don't feel bad about how it turned out. I don't know if you'll ever believe me, but I would have gone back to North Panem to die anyway. You have no idea how tired I was."

"You were all alone," she laments, stroking his hair.

"Not all alone," Finnick corrects. "I know you don't like Johanna, but it wasn't her fault. And she was there for me."

Cashmere says nothing. She tries never to say anything about Johanna to him, not blame, and not her secret fantasies that Johanna just magically disappears from the picture.

"Anyway, now you have things you want. And the clothes are easier?"

Cashmere nods. "Clothes, makeup, hair, everything. I dress up to go out with you, but I don't dress up to please you. That's what's different from before. I knew how to dress because I knew how to please, but I lost that when I came here and didn't know what I was aiming for, or how to aim for it."

Finnick smiles involuntarily at the echo. "That's what I try to hang onto, the thought that it worked out for you."

"It's still working out," she tells him. "It's not done yet. It takes a long time."

Resigned, Finnick nods. "Well, there's one thing I know for sure."

Cashmere knows it too, that nothing is better than the cuddling and heavy petting that they always fall into. They haven't had penetrative sex since Panem, but it was always rare, and Cashmere doesn't miss it. She doesn't have to focus on what's between their legs to get a deep, whole-body pleasure that she'll be happy to fall asleep to.

Lying on her back with the pillow tucked under her head, Cashmere lets him take care of making them feel good, while she smiles her encouragement at him. If she lives to be a hundred, she'll never get tired of hearing how much of a honeybee she is.

Half asleep, it's some time before she realizes what she's hearing is not words any more, but a ragged sound coming from deep in Finnick's throat as he nuzzles his way across her skin. A sound that's gone from appreciative to needy. The kind that Annie used to delight in drawing out of him.

She raises her head and sees the same speculative look in his eyes as in hers, wondering if this will translate into a sustained erection.

"Probably not," he decides. "But you never mind either way," he says comfortably.

Cashmere winks. "Annie doesn't usually get it up either."

"Oh, 'usually'?" Finnick teases. "Does that mean sometimes?"

"Weeell," she drawls, all mischief, "if you look in the box in the back of the top shelf of our closet..."

Finnick collapses on the bed, laughing until Cashmere has to join in. The only thing better than snuggling with Finnick is laughing while snuggling with Finnick. "Of course. I should have guessed. Annie would absolutely have a sex toy collection."

Maybe the memory of being called a sex toy that she sees flash in his eyes too was unavoidable, but what's new is that it doesn't sting any more. "Sex toys for a sex kitten," he murmurs, trying it out just to be sure, and Cashmere smiles her answer.

No, it doesn't hurt any more.


	5. Chapter 5

Johanna should have been home hours ago. Finnick smiles, imagining that she's taken her co-workers up on a night out, and glad even if she didn't call, or she called when he was in the car. She doesn't have to work tomorrow, so hopefully she's enjoying herself.

Meanwhile, he's trying to find a way of passing the time.

Annie sent food, so there's nothing to cook. He's already cleaned the apartment as much as one room with a mini fridge and a bathroom the size of a closet can be cleaned.

Yarn would give him something to do with his hands, but there's no need for mittens and scarves here, and he knows he could find a nicer sweater in a store than he could make. Knitting would feel like busy work, even if it didn't remind him of dying on Johanna's couch.

There's no snow to shovel, or wood to chop.

He doesn't feel like reading, because struggling with the new, foreign spelling and being slow again reminds him of spy training to process information quickly. Mags making him practice reading after he won his Games and telling him lives are going to depend on his proficiency.

When the door opens at eight-thirty, Johanna sighs in and drops her bag. "Man, I am out of shape if a thirteen-hour workday in an office can kill me. But we finished."

"You were working?!" Finnick exclaims in dismay.

"Yeah, we had a deadline to meet. Get in bed, you're giving me a massage."

Finnick obediently rises from his seat at the table. "Have you eaten? I figured you'd gone out for dinner."

"We ordered in. Kept everyone working late. Feels good, though. I think I'm getting better at it, too. At managing people without trampling over them."

That's encouraging. "Less defensive?"

Johanna nods. "They expect me to do a good job, and they don't act resentful or condescending when I do. After all these years, I think I finally got used to that, enough to chill the fuck out." She takes off her shirt. "Get the lotion from the-"

Finnick's already on his way to the bathroom. He knows what she wants on a night like this, strong fingers kneading her lower back and neck, but careful on the sites of injury, even the one on her upper left deltoid that hardly ever hurts.

The silence is comfortable, punctuated only by an occasional groan and "That's good."

"Do you still worry about turning out like your father?" Finnick asks. It's been on his mind lately.

"Less so," Johanna admits. "Now that I've got reliable painkillers. Nothing fully takes the pain away, but I can finally count on something I can tolerate. Lighter during the day, and stronger at night. You know, what I was looking for when I met you. Can't believe it took so long."

Maybe they should have stayed here, the first time they came. But it's hard for Finnick to regret the decision. She wanted to go home. Then he found he loved the hot pools, the changeable weather, the fireplace, sitting by the window. He loved that house, more than anything here. Annie's is wonderful, but very much hers and Cashmere's. Finnick and Johanna had managed to make the house up in the mountains theirs.

It was a good place to die. Maybe this is a good place to live.

"I like my job, that helps. And I have a word for my father's state of mind now."

"Depression?"

"Yeah."

His hands don't falter on her back, but he has a word for it now too, the tiredness and the inability to see a future that isn't as bleak as the present.

"I'm doing better," Finnick assures her. Not all the way there yet, but learning to take it slow.

"That helps too," Johanna admits. "Not having less work to do, but seeing something turn out all right when I least expected it. Maybe I can keep going without ending up a ghost in a chair."

After the massage, Johanna lets Finnick play with her hair as they lie in bed, soothing himself with reminders that even if it takes forever to get out of this place where he kind of wants to get better but doesn't actually want to do anything concrete, Annie says it's okay. Annie says he can sit on her couch indefinitely. And Cashmere has a gorgeous black evening number now that he wants to make plans around.

"Did you take your meds at eight?" Johanna asks. Usually she's around to remind him.

"Yes, Nags."

Johanna chokes. "You did _not_ call her that!"

"Only in public. It was funny because she didn't nag, but once I became a victor we had our camera personas to downplay our closeness, and mine was being irresponsible and impatient with all her rules. We had to laugh over it."

Thinking about her is distressing, though, in a way it's never been before, and Finnick grows more melancholy.

"Do you think Rudder would come?" he asks eventually.

"For you? Oh hell yes," Johanna assures him. "And if he drags his feet at all, I'll remind him that he's smaller than a tree."

Finnick laughs at the image of her shipping a Rudder downriver...and across the ocean. "You'll write him, then?"

Johanna squeezes his shoulder in answer.

* * *

"Mama, I got in trouble at school today!"

Before Annie can even begin the mantra she uses to keep her anxiety under control in the car, Maggie lets her know it's not happening today.

Now fighting down two reasons for being anxious, Annie twists over her shoulder to look at her daughter in the back seat. "What happened, honey?"

"I called the other kids 'spawn'." Maggie's angry and tearful at the same time. "And the teacher got really upset, and I had to stay inside when everyone else got to go outside and play!"

"I didn't know what to say," Cashmere adds softly, keeping her eyes on the road as she steers. "Is it bad?"

"Aunt Johanna does it all the time!" Evan rushes to his sister's defense. "She doesn't get in trouble!"

"Oh, Maggie." Annie takes a deep breath. "You weren't making fun of the other students? You weren't angry with them?"

"No!"

She's going to have to take Maggie's word on it. Annie's well aware that a child's version of a story often changes from school to home to make them look spotless, but Maggie really had no reason to think of this as a bad word.

"I'll write your teacher a note," Annie promises. "I'll remind her that your parents are from a different country and the language is a little different, and I'll explain that you didn't mean anything by it. But now that you know, you have to promise not to use that word again outside of the house."

"But how come?" Maggie protests. "Nobody ever said it was bad before."

Raising kids is so complicated. They'll spot any inconsistency in adult behavior and force you to try to make it sound logical. "Well, you know that we're from another country, and your teachers and friends talk differently than we do?"

Maggie nods. "They make fun of me if I talk like you."

Cashmere flinches visibly, and Annie can feel herself tense up. She's done her best to learn the local speech patterns, but she knows she always stands out. She has to force herself to continue her calm explanation. "Well, at home, it's a word you can use with family, if they know you mean it in a nice way. But at school, they won't know how you mean it. You always want to do your best to speak like your friends, because we live here now."

"Okay," Maggie grumbles. "But you have to give me a note tomorrow."

Annie, of course, is doubly self-conscious when she sits down to write the note that evening. Then again, she tells herself, if she makes any mistakes, it'll just lend credence to her argument that Maggie didn't know any better.

Cashmere looks a bit skeptical when Annie goes over the note with her after the kids are in bed. "It always felt a little insulting to me. This is Johanna. Are you sure she wasn't being mean?"

Annie laughs. "It came across as an affectionate insult to me. Like 'idiot'—you don't call your classmates idiots, but you can call your significant other an idiot if you say it in the right tone."

Cashmere's eyes narrow. "You've never called me an idiot."

"I don't, because I know you'd take it literally. But you can ask Finnick for all the names I used to call him. Anyway, I know Johanna can go beyond the pale, but 'spawn' doesn't strike me as her doing that."

"Is that what you called children in Four?"

"Not exactly," Annie answers, "but if a woman was pregnant, you could ask her when she was spawning. Again, a joke, but an inoffensive one. You could even use it on strangers."

The next time Annie gets Johanna and Finnick over for dinner, which never takes much coaxing, she tells Johanna about Maggie and the spawn. Johanna laughs just as hard as Annie expected.

"Well, I always knew they'd pick up some of my vocabulary. Pity the teacher has no sense of humor."

"It's not quite that," Annie defends. "She wrote me back a note thanking me for my explanation and telling me more about how the word's used here. As you know, the pronounced it a little differently here, so I suppose it's not too surprising the meaning's different too. She says it's not used for fish; they have a different word for that. It's used mostly for monsters and deformities. I get the impression it's like us calling someone a mutt."

"Hmm." Johanna chews on that. "You're right, I can see myself calling someone a mutt if they provoked me enough, but not your kids."

Finnick nudges her. "I love that you keep picking up new words at the office."

"Oh, it's great." Johanna grins menacingly. "I'm bilingual in insults now."

Maggie looks up from her lentils and vegetables with a bright smile. "Teach me insults, Aunt Johanna!" Then she anticipates Annie's objections with the most innocent of looks. "So I can avoid them, obviously."

"Smart kid." Johanna actually claps Maggie on the shoulder. "You've got a bright future ahead of you."

"I wanna learn insults!" Evan, of course.

To the accompaniment of groans around the table, Johanna works out a deal with them. They'll teach her what they've learned on the playground, and she'll teach them what she's learned at work.

"Johanna!" Annie protests. "This isn't going to end well."

"Can't have that bright future marred by any more accidental faux pas." Johanna can look as innocent as Maggie when she wants to. "Don't you want them to have a bright future?"

Maggie giggles.

Annie could easily pull rank, but she yields, giving her kids a very serious look. "All right, but I expect you to use this information responsibly. If I hear about any more incidents at school, I'm going to have a harder time trusting you."

They promise, and the session begins. Annie keeps a close eye on it, but they're having a lot of fun, and she finds herself laughing with them.

Finally, the lesson tapers off, and Annie gets up to serve dessert.

"New Year's is coming," Cashmere points out, when Annie puts a bowl of baked apples in front of her.

"Oh, that's right." Annie'd forgotten. "I cook a big meal, like I always do on special days," she explains to Finnick and Johanna. "There are some traditional foods, but we try to get creative too. If you want, you can go browse the store and pick out whatever you like, and I'll make it." Annie swallows on the next part, but because it's Finnick, she blurts it out before she can chicken out, "I'll even go with you."

The Finnick she knew would jump at any chance to get her out of the house, but this one only smiles. "Anything you cook is delicious. Just do whatever will make the kids happy."

That does the trick. At once, Maggie and Evan jump in with suggestions, which quickly turn into an argument over the merits of baked versus roasted potatoes and their toppings.

It's some time before Annie can get a word in edgewise, and she's narrowing her eyes. Finnick's very effectively just diverted attention off a topic he obviously didn't want to discuss, and she knows that's one of his media tricks.

"No, but you don't eat enough," Annie insists, when she finally manages to regain control of the conversation. "Come on, I've even offered to go to a store," she teases gently.

Finnick smiles tautly, and she can see the exasperation behind his patience. "Do you maybe remember any other special occasions involving me and food? What you have here is a recipe for disaster."

"No, I know," Annie argues, "but that's why we agreed to start preparing in advance. You can pick out whatever you think will make the next time go better."

Taking a deep breath, Finnick looks down at the table and gathers himself. "Look, I know food for you is like touch for me. It's how you do caring. And that's why I've been trying to make the effort for you. But I think you'll remember all the times you couldn't handle being touched? The last thing I want right now is to be _more_ involved with the food process."

Stung by the rejection, Annie's trying to get her emotions under control, trying to think of something to say, and trying to come up with a different solution for the food problem, when Johanna jumps in. "Do you want to be less involved?" She's been sitting and watching without a word, eating her baked apples while waiting to see how this goes, but now she's taking charge. "Because that can be arranged."

Finnick doesn't say anything, but he raises an eyebrow questioningly, encouraging her to continue.

"I can talk to your doctor, work out something that's healthy for you now, doesn't interfere with any athlete diets you may want to go on someday, but isn't an athlete's diet right now. And you don't have to worry about all the decision-making, every bite, every meal."

Finnick is cautiously hopeful. "Maybe?"

"Rule number one, then." Johanna's speaking with so much confidence Annie can hardly believe she's making this up as she goes along, but Finnick's hanging on her every word. Maybe that's why she's a manager. "We'll go easy on the dessert, but you clean your plate. I'll worry about the portion sizes; your job is to eat what's in front of you. Capiche?"

"Okay." Finnick nods slowly. "We can try that."

"I'll come to your next appointment," Johanna says, and that's that.

Annie's not thrilled by it. She's spent the last several years bending over backwards trying not to make all the decisions for Cashmere, who's an expert at maneuvering Annie into making them without realizing it. Annie's trying to encourage her to have confidence in her own. Confidence may never have been Finnick's problem, but that doesn't mean Annie likes seeing Johanna manage his food any more than she liked Johanna overriding his decision to die, no matter how understandable Johanna's feelings might be.

But Johanna's the one Finnick has chosen to spend his life with, and it's not really Annie's place to interfere, if he's happy with this arrangement. Maybe it's just the equivalent of Annie needing someone to accompany her to strange places. Maybe it's just a concession you have to make. Victors have scars.

It's so hard to know where to draw the line.

"Besides, you remember what happened the last time you were left in charge of your own diet." Johanna's needling voice draws Annie out of her thoughts. "City pigeons and food poisoning."

Annie's curious about the history behind this, but she won't ask for his war stories, and so far he hasn't volunteered.

Finnick chuckles. "It's true, first I had the academy, and Rudder was pretty strict even after I graduated, and then during the war it was whatever we could get our hands on. I never had to make this many decisions."

"I eat what Annie feeds me," Cashmere says, smiling. "It's always delicious."

Finnick smiles back at her. "And she takes your dessert."

"Many times," Cashmere agrees.

"Maybe she can go back to taking mine," he suggests with a wink.

Annie hesitates, but she can see him trying to find a way to keep food from being so stressful. If he's suggesting this because of his and Cashmere's shared history with her...well, nostalgia is a better reason than most.

"What's a little more fat at this point?" Annie finally says agreeably. "Hand it over with all speed."

Johanna jokingly curves her hands protectively around her own bowl. "Hands off mine."

"I still can't get over the cinnamon!" Annie exclaims, happy to change the subject. "And no," she says to Finnick's eyebrow twitch, "I did not grow up with cinnamon. But then I got used to it for five years. How can you have porridge or baked apples without cinnamon?"

Johanna shrugs. "Beats tessera mush."

"The honey makes it good," Cashmere assures Annie. "Here, have some of mine." She pushes her bowl over. "Mine are delicious even without cinnamon."

Annie smiles at her. That's Cashmere, always trying to make sure everyone's happy. "It's all right, sweetie, I'm not upset." She takes a minute to try to think how to explain a complaint that isn't a complaint. Not unlike trying to explain the line between friendly and hostile insults to Maggie.

"Am I being—what did my therapist call it—hypervigilant again?" Cashmere asks. She laughs a little when Annie heaves an involuntary sigh of relief. "Yes?"

Reaching out to squeeze her hand, Annie just repeats, "I'm not upset."

Sometimes she thinks the best part of getting therapy was being able to see patterns and have a shorthand for talking about them. She knows Cashmere spent her entire childhood trying to figure out if she was letting the adults down, because they would never tell you if you were failing out, and that she learned to jump on the slightest sign of displeasure and try to make it better.

But it's wonderful for Cashmere both to be aware of this, and to be able to say it in one word. It doesn't matter if they haven't solved the problem entirely, any more than Annie's anxiety has entirely gone away.

When she and Cashmere look back at the table, Finnick and Johanna are having a whispered conference about something. Annie smiles and then checks to see if the kids are done with dessert yet. She's in the process of accepting Evan's empty bowl and fork when a snarl from Johanna makes her drop them, clattering, to the table.

"What the hell are you looking at? You're always staring at me."

Just as Cashmere sucks in a shocked breath and begins stammering an apology, Annie flares at Johanna. "How dare you! Don't you dare yell at my wife!"

"She's always doing it, and it's pissing me off!"

Finnick's saying something too, but in the uproar of four voices—now six, the kids have joined in—he can't be heard. He snaps into action, grabbing the back of Johanna's chair beside him and yanking it back until she's facing the ceiling. As she scrambles out of the chair and onto her feet, shrieking her fury, Finnick leaps to his feet. In the same motion, he throws up a hand in Annie's direction, wordlessly urging her to let him handle Johanna.

Still seething and wanting to punch anyone who even looks at Cashmere wrong, Annie clenches and unclenches her fists at her sides until she finally decides she can be of more help with Cashmere than Johanna, as long as Finnick isn't taking his wife's part.

And judging by the wrestling match that's just broken out on the other side of the kitchen, he's not.

So Annie turns her attention to getting the kids calmed down, and encouraging them to go play or study in their room after dinner while the adults sort this out. As soon as it's sorted out and Annie can think calmly, she's going to have a talk with them about acceptable and unacceptable behavior, so they don't take away the wrong lessons from tonight.

Normally she'd say that Finnick's not setting the best example either, going straight to physical violence, but Johanna's not the one Annie's wondering if she's going to have to rescue in a few minutes. But she deliberately turns her back on that skirmish, which is receding further and further from the kitchen, and faces her wife.

Cashmere's still red-faced, and now she's sitting wide-eyed and frozen, choking on her fear of whatever she did wrong this time. Annie has to rub her shoulders and the back of her neck and whisper in her ear for a long time before she unthaws enough to speak again. "I'm sorry, it was a stupid thing to do."

Annie shakes her head emphatically. "You don't let anyone make you feel stupid. Not ever."

"But it's not polite to always be watching someone. I can't believe I thought she wasn't going to notice..."

"Well, I didn't notice," Annie said. "It's not like you were being obvious about it. Why were you watching her, anyway?"

Cashmere just shakes her head and won't answer. "And now she's going to be mad at Finnick."

It's gotten quieter in the house. Annie glances up. "I think they took it outside. I trust he can handle her, and I'll talk to him later. But why were you watching Johanna? I'm sure you had a good reason."

But nothing Annie says can convince Cashmere to open up.

* * *

On the front porch, Finnick's trying to fight and reason with Johanna at the same time. Not the easiest combination, but he's had his share of experience. She cools down faster if she has the chance to blow off some steam, than if she goes off by herself in a sulk and convinces herself she was right.

He's never minded a good tussle with her—some playful and others more hardcore—but the problem is that he's no longer in form, and he's struggling just to hold his own.

So he needs to talk fast.

"You're jumping down throats first and asking questions later again! We discussed this, yeah?"

Yanking her arm out of his grip, Johanna angles to throw a punch, but showily enough that he can dodge so it glances off. "I'm sick of being stared at like I have two heads!"

Finnick's not above pulling hair if she's going to wear hers long. "Remember growing up in Seven, where your best strategy was to go on the attack pre-emptively? We're not in Seven any more!"

"At least there I didn't expect any better! What the fuck does she think she's doing!"

The carved wooden column supporting the overhang cuts into Finnick's back as she shoves him into it.

"Well, you could try asking her!" he shouts back.

One of the neighbors puts her head outside the door and hollers at them to tone it down.

Finnick takes advantage of the opening. "If the police come, it'll look like domestic violence, and you know who'll get in trouble for that one."

Against her will, Johanna laughs harshly. "Been there, done that." She heaves a couple of deep breaths, takes a step back, and tosses her sweat-stained bangs off her forehead. "Fine."

Keeping an eye on her out of the corner of his eye, Finnick sits down on the top step and rests his feet on the bottom one. It's pouring rain, but this way only his feet will get wet.

Johanna joins him as companionably as if they hadn't been smacking each other just a minute before.

"Yeah?" Finnick asks. "Who'd you beat up before me?"

She snorts. "Not that. One of my co-workers, a few months after I started, put some pieces together wrong and decided you were exploiting and abusing me."

"The hell?" Finnick huffs. "What pieces?"

"Don't worry, I jumped down her throat," Johanna assures him. "Well, I guess word made the rounds that I'm the sole breadwinner—hell, I don't know what comes out of my mouth at work—but apparently one thing is bitching about men, and someone saw me driving and carrying the bags and holding doors on one of your appointments before the surgery...and, long story short, one of my co-workers came in on me trying to massage a painful spot on my back in the women's room, and started telling me about resources I could turn to if I wasn't safe at home."

"I suppose I can see where she was coming from." Finnick considers the matter. "And it's good there are resources here."

"I didn't know whether I was more offended on your behalf or mine," Johanna sputters. "You're a fucking war hero."

"War hero doesn't mean nice, you know," Finnick points out. "You can't tell from the outside what a relationship is like."

"But safe at home?! I survived two arenas!"

"So did Cashmere," Finnick reminds her quietly. "She's stronger and better with weapons than you. And she was vulnerable to abuse for years."

"She never stands up for herself," Johanna grumbles scornfully.

"She stands up for other people. I've told you about Career training in One. She was trained to keep quiet and assume she was always in the wrong."

"So was I, but I never stood for it."

Finnick shakes his head. "Not consistently. Sometimes your behavior got you punished, and sometimes it got you jobs women weren't supposed to have. You would have failed out of the academy with that attitude."

"I'd have made it through," Johanna swears. "And not as a doormat."

"And she'd have made it through your upbringing without jumping down innocent throats for the rest of her life. Trade-offs, yeah?"

"I guess," Johanna mutters ungraciously. Then she scowls. "I'm not apologizing."

By now, Finnick's had time to come up with an answer for that one. "Tell her you didn't mean to have flashbacks of growing up in Seven, and you didn't mean to give her flashbacks of growing up in One. And if you agree to that, I'll tell you why she's been watching you so much lately."

Johanna bolts upright. "What? You knew?"

"No, I didn't notice until you pointed it out. But I know Cashmere, and I'm pretty confident I know what's been going on."

"Tell me!"

Finnick presses his lips together and raises one eyebrow. Not until he gets that promise out of her.

He can see her toying with the idea of holding out just for the sake of winning, but she must know she was being unreasonable earlier, so she only growls a little. "Fine, I _suppose_ I can manage that. Now tell me before I cut you."

"She's been trying to learn to be more assertive, but it's uncharted territory for her. Annie's got those anxiety disorders, and we all know I've been exhausted and subdued lately, so you're the most consistent example she's got."

"What the fuck?" Johanna cannot believe her ears. "I'm nobody's role model."

Finnick smiles. "If she can filter out the knee-jerk reactions, I think she could do worse." He rises. "Now come on inside before I catch my death of cold."

Maybe Johanna's had enough of violence for tonight, because she doesn't even swat at him affectionately for that joke, only takes his hand. "Crazy boy."


	6. Chapter 6

"Annie!" It's Finnick's voice, calling from the front door. "Surprise for you!"

Annie recognizes his old voice, full of liveliness and mischief. Her heart instinctively leaps, before she reminds herself that it could be an act. She's been burned too many times to think his performances can't fool her.

But whatever it is, act or no, the surprise is bound to be anything but boring. She sets down the book she was reading on the nightstand and comes out of the bedroom. There's a bit of a commotion at the front door, where she sees Finnick holding the door open, Johanna bending over and backing in while holding onto something close to the ground and lifting it, and that something coming over the threshold.

Or rather, someone.

"Beetee!" Annie cries, and she comes running. "I'm so sorry, I'll put in a ramp, I swear, I'll do it today-"

Beetee laughs and holds out his arms. "Give me a hug, girl."

Once the wheelchair is through the door and level on the ground, Annie throws her arms around him, glowing with unlooked-for joy. "I haven't seen you in years!"

"We didn't even know you were in Ayre! I would have told you I was coming."

When Annie looks up, Rudder is standing behind Beetee, resting his hands on the chair handles and looking pleased and relaxed.

"Well, come in!" Annie says. "Come into the living room, make yourselves at home. Drinks? Anyone not comfortable with alcohol being served?"

Everyone's fine with it, so the wine bottle and a set of glasses go around, until it gets to Finnick and he hesitates. "Jo? Medication interactions?"

She scowls, and Annie kicks herself for not checking first. She's so used to knowing what her own restrictions are, but Finnick's on approximately one million medications and still new to all of them.

"Shit, I don't remember," Johanna says. "They probably told us, but it never came up before this." She makes to unlock the giant medical bag at their feet, but Finnick waves her off and passes the bottle on, untouched.

"We'll check later. Some other time."

Annie also has to forgo, but it doesn't diminish her happiness in the least, sitting next to Finnick on the couch, with Johanna on his other side, Beetee in the largest open space in the living room, and Rudder in the armchair next to him.

"Cashmere and the kids are at the zoo," Annie tells them. "I'm at home because, well, you know me. And it's the only quiet time I get to read."

"Oh, wow," Beetee says, "you have kids?"

"Yeah." Annie looks at Rudder when she answers. "They're from Panem too, adopted. Maggie's seven, and Evan's five."

Rudder nods, understanding. She has no idea how he felt about Evan, but he certainly knew the boy better than anyone else here.

"Cashmere and I got married. You can do that here," Annie explains when Beetee's eyebrows fly up. She wonders if this means something to him, but she doesn't know him well enough yet to ask.

Finnick has no such compunctions. "And you two?" He directs his question at his old mentor.

The pause is not exactly awkward, but it smacks of a question they've answered many times. "Friends with benefits," Rudder answers, and they leave it at that. Annie can see that this is as much detail as they're comfortable going into, and she respects their privacy.

Finnick laughs. "I guess you can say I'm married without benefits."

Rudder looks over at Johanna, who raises her chin and looks him in the eye. "You had your chance."

That gets an appreciative chuckle out of him, and a roar out of Finnick. "Two marriages, and neither of them interested in me."

Annie frowns and starts to speak, then stops herself. She wishes she could go back in time and have sex that wasn't about tiptoeing around her hair-trigger reflexes and Finnick's hangups, but maybe this is what Finnick needs to tell himself.

She clears her frown and turns to Beetee. "What brings you two here, all the way from West Panem?"

"I came to pay Finnick a visit," Rudder answers. Interesting. Annie wonders whose idea that was. "I had no idea you and Cashmere were living here until I showed up with Beetee and Finnick said you'd want to see him."

Then Beetee supplies his own story. "When I heard Rudder was coming, and that the medical care here was better, we decided to see if there's anything that'll make my life easier. Not expecting a miracle, just seeing what's available."

Annie smiles at him. She hopes he finds something good. "If your chair can't already fly to the moon, I'll be very disappointed."

Beetee returns her smile. "I've added a few features over the years," he admits.

"Annie, tell him what you do for a living!" Finnick prods.

Excitement floods Annie. She's been so caught up in meeting old friends and sharing the news of shifting relationships that she'd forgotten. "I'm an electrician!"

Beetee's face lights up with the same joy she feels, and a pride that makes her warm all through. "Really! What do you do?"

"I'm not an inventor. But I wire new buildings, and I add and fix wiring in old buildings, and—I do leave the house, you know. Going out for fun is still hard, but I can do it for my job. Cashmere's such a sweetheart, you wouldn't believe it. Back before we had kids, when I was still much more scared, she used to go to all my jobs with me. That was before I became an electrician, when I was a handyworker—and I promise to build a ramp! I want you to come visit all the time while you're here."

Beetee promises.

"Cashmere tells me Annie built this whole house from scratch," Finnick tells Beetee, and Annie rolls her eyes affectionately.

"Cashmere is a wonderful wife who loves me way too much to be objective. It was already a house when we bought it, but it was a fixer upper, and now it's a nice place."

"It's very nice," Beetee agrees, looking around at the pictures, the clock, the kids' drawings and toys, the patchwork throw across the back of the couch, and the carved lamps.

"Now, some of the furniture I did build from scratch," Annie admits. "I'm planning on adding an extra room someday, when I have the chance."

She avoided saying _money_ , but Finnick still smiles brightly and elaborates, "Expensive as always, that's me," and okay, she's definitely going to have to talk to him. Because that's the sort of joke he makes when he's hurting, and he's obviously feeing guilty.

Glancing over, Annie can see Johanna's eyes narrowing. Good, Finnick will have two people to knock some sense into him.

"I don't think I was ever told why you're here?" Beetee says politely.

"New pair of lungs," Finnick answers. "Nerve gas." When Beetee hesitates to ask, he volunteers, "From the arena."

Beetee winces. "Ouch. Well, that makes two of us."

Finnick shrugs. "At least mine was a delayed reaction. I had a few good years."

"Doing better here?"

Finnick makes a so-so gesture with his hand. "Better medical care, definitely. Post-surgery prognosis..." He makes the gesture again.

Beetee looks sympathetic, then turns back to Annie. "What's it like being an electrician here? How does it compare to what I taught you?"

Finnick's eyes widen in mock horror. "Okay, you two have to sit next to each other if you're going to talk shop." He starts herding them with exaggerated arm motions.

Annie and Beetee laugh together. "Gladly!" A look passes between Rudder and Beetee, and Rudder stands up so that he and Annie can change places. Annie gets another hug from Beetee as she does, this one even prouder. "That's my girl," he whispers in her ear.

"We'll have a little Four conclave over here," Finnick says as Rudder sits down next to him.

Johanna directs a sharp look at Beetee's confusion. "I'm honorary Four," she informs him haughtily. "Have been since before the war."

Annie laughs. "I'm honorary Three, right? Right?"

"Of course!" Beetee declares. "We adopted you, even before you saved us with that lockdown."

"This is so amazing." Annie claps her hands in delight. Then she looks at the group on the couch. "I love you all," she assures them, "but I got adopted!"

Finnick puts his fingertips to his lips and blows her a kiss across the room. He's happy for her, she can tell. And nothing will stop her from talking to him alone the moment they get a chance.

* * *

Johanna mutters under her breath, "If I make the joke about-"

"Yes, I will kill you," Finnick promises matter-of-factly.

"Fine." But she's smiling.

"Besides, does she look nuts?" Finnick says directly into Johanna's ear, so softly that even Rudder can't hear.

"Guess not any more," Johanna admits. "Probably the sanest of us all."

Then Johanna remembers to check her watch, and when she sees the time she nudges Finnick with her right elbow. He sighs, and on cue, coughs until she's satisfied. Rudder watches closely, then looks questioningly at Johanna, who nods. "Routine lung exercise. Finnick, what was that sigh? You've been doing this regularly while I'm at work, I hope."

Nevertheless, Johanna puts her hand over his wrist and rubs her thumb against the base of his palm, because she knows recovery is hell, and she's constantly at him to exercise and take his meds. The only way this is even remotely the right thing to do is if she's caring for him, not driving him relentlessly.

"Sighing is good for my lungs," Finnick informs her innocently, shifting his hand slightly to give her freer access. "I'm supposed to sigh deeply at you as often as I can."

Johanna laughs, because she can't even argue. But she can escalate. "Then I'll have to be more provoking. And if anyone calls me on it, it's part of your treatment."

Finnick sighs again, this time more over-the-top dramatically. "I've created a monster."

Rudder's been watching their interactions. "How's married life treating you?"

"Wonderfully well," he replies glibly, "you should try it."

Rudder just gives him a _look_ , and doesn't take the bait.

"Was he always like this?" Johanna wonders.

"Always," Rudder says. "Always pushing the boundaries to see what he could get away with."

"Hey, it was good practice for the Capitol," Finnick defends. "You have no idea how much information I collected because I got everyone used to expecting that kind of behavior from me—and used to thinking of it as harmless fun."

Johanna leans forward around Finnick. "Did he actually call you Hatchet Face in your hearing at the academy, or was he bluffing? Because he said he did, but one of your other former students wasn't buying it, and so we had a bet going in Seven..."

Finnick is sputtering, but Rudder looks past him straight to Johanna. "You know what the best way to shut down an attention-seeker is?"

"Ignore him?"

Rudder doesn't even have to grace that with a confirmation. "So how's married life?"

Johanna moves her hand from Finnick's wrist to his back, just below his left shoulder.

"I trust her," Finnick answers.

"Two marriages?" Rudder echoes gently. _To someone you knew wasn't after your body?_

"Well, I trust Cashmere too, but maybe that's a special case."

"Victors have scars." Rudder understands.

"I'm doing my best," Johanna promises Rudder, and even she doesn't know whether she's talking about her own scars or Finnick's. "Where are you and Beetee staying, a hotel?"

"We'd offer you a place to stay the night," Finnick adds, "but it's only the one tiny room and barely furnished. Annie supplies us with most of our food."

Rudder gives them the name of the bed and breakfast. "You want me to come back with you tonight, or drop by tomorrow, or what?"

Johanna's equally curious to hear what's on Finnick's mind. All he'd told her was that he needed a mentor, and so she wrote Rudder with the bare details of the lung surgery. She left out all the details of Finnick's passiveness. _I tried not to let him burn out,_ is all she wrote. _I'm sorry._

This afternoon, she's watched him take more initiative than she's seen in years, but after the meltdown the last time he had guests over, she's nursing the same caution she saw on Annie's face earlier. But unlike Annie, Johanna can't set it aside to talk shop with an old friend. She's got her eye on Finnick, and she won't let up until she's sure he's safe.

And now she's curious where Rudder fits into the picture.

"Tomorrow," Finnick answers. "Our apartment's on public transit. It's only Annie who's out here practically in the country."

Tomorrow Johanna will be at work, so that answers part of her question.

At the sound of a car pulling into the driveway, Annie looks up and interrupts both conversations. "That'll be Cashmere and the kids. You're all staying for dinner, right? Feeding people is how I show I care."

"She's a great cook," Finnick brags, and Johanna nods her agreement. She's accepted too much food from Annie not to back her up.

"Obviously!" Annie gestures proudly at her ample waist, earning a smile from Rudder.

"I wouldn't have recognized you as the girl Donn carried off the train." Fat still means fortunate to anyone from the districts. Even to whipcord-lean athlete/warriors pushing sixty who look like they still do a hundred push-ups first thing in the morning.

"I wouldn't dream of leaving before I got a taste of this cooking," Beetee agrees.

Johanna wants to get Finnick home, pry off the mask, and prod the wounds beneath. But he's busy offering Rudder and Beetee suggestions as they put in their requests for tonight's menu, so Johanna says nothing yet.

She can bide her time. She proved that the first time she set foot in the arena.

* * *

"Steak!" "Sweet potatoes!" "Lasagna!" "Eggs and potatoes and goat cheese!" "Spinach casserole!" "That avocado thing you made that one time."

Annie can't stop laughing. The floodgates have been opened, and the requests for food are coming fast and furious. Some serious, some silly.

"Baked potatoes!" "I want sour cream and chives on mine!" "Truffles!" "Chili!" "Shrimp!"

"No seafood," Finnick interrupts firmly.

Rudder gives him a look of disbelief. "You're telling me I moved to Three ten years ago, and I'm finally being fed by someone who knows how to make shrimp right, and I can't have any?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you." Finnick's smirk is just this side of dangerous for someone who knows him.

Beetee doesn't. "Boy from District Four doesn't like seafood?"

"Boy from District Four had to eat seafood at what I swear was every single meal." Finnick's almost snarling. "And be delighted every...single...time. Do you think anyone in the Capitol ever had an original idea? I was a fucking performing seal. Arp, arp."

Annie jolts, expecting the humor but not the bitterness, not from Finnick. "And that's why we have a no-seafood rule here," she interjects, hastily making a no-seafood rule. "I'll make something for you to take back with you one day while you're here," she promises Rudder.

"Meanwhile, I have an idea. How do pasties sound? I'll make the pastry crust, and I'll set out a bunch of ingredients, and everyone can come into the kitchen and pick out their favorites. Plus we have leftover bean soup from last night, and some bread—sweetie, can I ask you to pick up some more at the bakery? I don't think we have quite enough for eight."

"Of course!" says Cashmere.

"And stuffed tomatoes?" Finnick requests.

"Sure. Cashmere, you can grab some tomatoes while you're out. And that's all the requests I'm taking, that's enough cooking for one night. It'll be a few hours before everything's ready, so if anyone's hungry, I can bring out some fruit and snacks now."

Annie's relieved when Johanna follows her to the kitchen.

"Last time we had guests-" she mutters under her breath, and Johanna nods firmly.

"I'm taking care of it. Give me an orange."

Johanna peels and divides an orange to take back to Finnick, and Annie carries a tray full of goodies out to the coffee table.

"Beetee, do you want to come keep me company while I cook?"

"I can tell you about the chemistry of cooking," he answers, and she glows.

"I'd forgotten how much I missed you!"

While she chops and kneads and washes, Annie gets questions answered she didn't even know she had. As much as she's eager to catch up on a personal level, she figures there'll be time enough for that, and never enough for this.

"This isn't electronics," Annie teases, during a discussion about oil and what makes it hydrophobic.

"Come on," Beetee rolls his eyes affectionately, "it's basic organic chemistry. Ever tried to cook on a Bunsen burner?"

"I don't even know what that is," Annie says. "Can you pass me the salt and tell me about salt?"

Beetee pushes his chair back to the counter and fetches the salt grinder. "Salt is interesting because it's not made up of individual molecules, but an interlocking lattice of sodium and chlorine atoms. They didn't make you take chemistry in your evening electrician classes?"

"No!"

"They should have," Beetee decrees.

"I wish you lived here," Annie says wistfully. "I read what I can from the library, but it doesn't always make sense without someone to explain it. And it's so hard for me to get out of the house, even now. I don't suppose you want to move here? I'm sorry about the ramp, I put one in for Mags years ago. If I'm cooking tonight, I guess I'll start tomorrow, after work."

Beetee smiles. "I'll visit as often as I can. But living here...I don't know. I'm busy making performance and stability improvements to the power grid at home."

"Like Johanna in Seven, trying to make sure everyone has access to electricity and running water if they want it." Annie nods. "I know, I was mostly joking."

"I see it as something of a responsibility," he half-apologizes, half-explains. "As a victor, I had the free time to study what I liked, and access to more resources. I'm in the best position to make some of these improvements. I teach a lot, too. You don't know—maybe you did, you knew a lot of us—how many of our bright, hungry minds were wasted on repetitive tasks."

Annie remembers Joule and her sheer joy at being free to learn, even if it meant living side by side with terror. "What's Rudder up to? He's still living in Three?"

"Without the right recipes for seafood, apparently," Beetee confirms. "He's mostly retired. Still handles some of the paperwork, but...he's almost sixty, you know, and..."

Annie understands. "I didn't know he'd lost an eye. And I understand about invisible wounds. I don't think any of us are doing as well as we look. What do you want in your pasty?"

"Hm. Lots of potato, a bit of all the other vegetables, garlic, sounds delicious."

Annie spoons the ingredients into his pasty crust and prepares to fold it. "No beef?"

Beetee makes a face. "I've had a certain distaste for meat ever since my first Hunger Games. Something about the thought of charred flesh."

Annie smacks her forehead. "Oh, no, I should have asked, I'm sorry. It's just that meat's a little expensive here, and I usually break it out on special occasions."

"It's all right, Annie, I don't mind if anyone else eats it. Why so expensive, though? I thought food was easy to come by in this country."

"Oh, we have plenty," Annie assures him. "Can't you tell?" She prods her belly, making Beetee laugh when her finger sinks into the soft flesh. "But you'd have to ask Johanna," she says, pitching her voice a little louder.

"Ask me what?" Johanna steps into the doorway between the kitchen and living room.

"Why meat's so rare here."

"You mean the part where we're living on a small island and transportation from outside is restricted? You have to grow a lot of corn to feed a cow, and the cow's less filling than the amount of corn it takes to feed the cow."

"No," says Annie, "I mean the part where you haven't fixed that yet."

"I don't make policy!" Johanna protests, looking pleased. "Yet. Why, are the guests demanding more meat?" She gives Beetee a suspicious look.

"No, this one's demanding less meat, in fact, but you want more and I want more, so why hasn't it been solved yet?"

"I'll get back to you on that," Johanna promises.

"I'm not demanding anything," Beetee insists. " _I'm_ not trying to control what anyone else eats." There's just enough emphasis on the _I_ that Annie freezes.

She says as fast as she can, "Beetee, please don't-" but as fast as she can is not fast enough.

"Fuck you!"

"Johanna-!"

"Johanna, it's fine."

Johanna turns her head over her shoulder back into the living room. "It's not fine. That's what you say when Katniss pulls shit like leaving you to the mutts. That doesn't mean it's fine."

"Johanna, please. She didn't have combat training, and she volunteered for her first Games, which is more than you did."

"Yeah, lay off Katniss," Beetee adds. "I didn't see you taking on Brutus at the Cornucopia."

Johanna grins wolfishly, and Finnick chuckles. "Sorry, Beetee, you lose."

"Yeah, because when _I_ took on Brutus, there was no fooling around. Why do you think you haven't seen him since then?"

"You killed Brutus?" Cashmere asks quietly.

"Damn straight. I'd've been second if I'd been playing that game for keeps."

All in a flash, Annie's back in her living room in the Victors' Village, watching Johanna leaping toward Cashmere, axe in hand, before Finnick cuts her off. It's only for a second, but when she comes back to herself, Annie's in the kitchen with someone she doesn't know. Not a friend. Someone who wanted to kill Cashmere. Who's still bringing it up like she wishes she had.

Annie's mind fills with static. "No. No."

"Third," Finnick says briskly, "and not in front of Annie."

"Third?! Who the fuck are you calling as second?"

Finnick shoots a quick glance at Annie, then at Rudder. "We're taking this outside." Together, he and Rudder haul an arguing Johanna through the back door and slam it shut behind them.

Abandoning the food on the table, Annie looks for Cashmere. She's sitting on the rocking chair with a stunned face, and Annie puts her arms around her, as much for her own comfort as Cashmere's. "You okay, love?"

 _She's okay. She's here. No one's going to hurt her._

"I don't know. I don't know how to feel about this. I guess I should be glad." She's silent.

Annie leans down and puts her chin over Cashmere's shoulder, where her hair is hanging loose. "You can have as many different feelings about this as you want. You had a relationship, even if he didn't treat you with respect."

Maggie and Evan, noticing Mum in distress, come running over to hug her. Evan climbs onto her lap, and Maggie stands beside the chair and throws her arms around her from the side.

Cashmere hugs them back tightly. "I'm okay, darlings," she reassures them, "I'm all right." Then she shifts and shakes herself, like she wants to think about something else. "I just wish it hadn't been Johanna," she says to Annie.

"I will give her a talking-to that will make her grandmother look like a mealy-mouth," Annie promises. "She does that again and she's not invited back."

"No, don't, Annie," Cashmere pleads. "I'm sure it's being taken care of right now."

Annie's taken aback, at first, that Cashmere of all people doesn't want Johanna to tone it down, and then she understands. "No, Finnick will still be allowed to come over."

"But he won't. She'll leave and he'll go with her. It's okay, really."

"She upset me too," Annie points out, but she sighs. Finnick and Rudder had better be taking care of this. She has no idea how this evening went from gentle banter about food to kill boasts.

By the time the District Four contingent comes traipsing back in, damp and muddy, Annie's back at the kitchen table like nothing happened, learning about amino acids. She looks up wordlessly at Johanna as the door opens, and Johanna looks straight at her.

"It won't happen again."

"Better not," says Annie, and she looks down again at the baking tray. Letting it go for Cashmere's sake. "Everyone else has picked out their ingredients. Come get yours, all of you, and I'll start dinner cooking."

Rudder comes first. Beef and vegetables, no spices.

"I admit, I'm curious who would have been second," Beetee says, with a sidelong glance at Annie. "Tell me later?"

"I'll tell you." Rudder nods at Annie that that's enough turnip. "He had some pretty irrefutable arguments. I think that helped de-escalate the situation."

"I'll make you shrimp," Annie promises. "However you like it."

"Victors have scars." Rudder says, answering the meaning behind her words rather than the words themselves. "I'll just give thanks that I never had to perform for my food."

Annie gives him a warm, relieved smile. At least he cares about Finnick too. Now she wonders if he's the one who came up with "victors have scars," or if it predates him.

Johanna's next, sauntering in like she has no regrets in the world. "Extra beef, no turnip, and lots of peppercorns. Then let's do his."

"I've already done his," Annie tells her. "I know what he likes. Beef, potato, onion, peas, and rosemary."

"He likes turni-"

Hysterical laughter flows in from the living room, interrupting them, and the three of them look up with a quizzical smile. Then Cashmere appears at the front kitchen door. "Annie, help!"

"Help?" Annie's heart skips a beat, but Cashmere doesn't look distressed, only perplexed.

"I don't know the rules, and Finnick can't stop laughing."

That makes no sense, so Annie just follows Cashmere out of the kitchen.

Evan looks disgruntled the moment she appears. "Mama, no one will tell us why it's okay for Aunt Johanna and Uncle Finnick to hit each other, but me and Maggie can't. And it's not 'cause they're grownups, because you said grownups shouldn't either."

"Yeah!" says Maggie.

Cashmere's looking at Annie with her hands spread wide, helpless to put the rules into words, and Finnick, choking on his laughter, appeals to Annie. "You know me, I can never explain anything."

Annie stands in the middle of the floor, with even Rudder looking amused, and Johanna murmuring, "Spawn," in her ear.

Is it because they're soldiers? Because it's mutually consensual? But just because both the kids want to hit each other when they're mad doesn't mean they should. Because it's fun? Beause they won't hurt each other? None of this is going to teach Maggie and Evan good conflict resolution skills even if they can manage not to hurt each other. If she says Finnick and Johanna really shouldn't, then the fact that they do anyway will tell the kids it's not important to do what they should.

"You're on your own," says Johanna, and joins Finnick on the couch.

"And what's sex got to do with it?" Maggie adds.

"What's— _what_?!" Annie explodes. She looks at Cashmere, who just mouths _Help_ again.

"I said it was like sex," Finnick says, hiccuping. "That if you're grownups and you're both enjoying yourselves and you trust each other, then you can get physical."

"You did not!" She looks at a grinning, unrepentant Finnick. "You ruin everything. He's five, Finnick! She's seven!"

"How old were you?"

"Well," Annie says, caught, "my whole family slept in one room, so I knew what my aunt and uncle were up to, but we weren't discussing it before dinner." Her older sisters were discussing their own experiments of the day in bed, giggling and whispering, and Finnick knows that, damn him. "And the point is, I'm not prepared to have this discussion on the spot, especially not the 'how not to end up in an abusive relationship' discussion."

Nor is she ready for any of the other conversations this might lead to.

"Nope, this is your mess," she says to Finnick. "You clean it up. Cashmere, come on, we're making dinner."

She takes Cashmere by the hand, trusting Finnick, but listening in intently as they walk.

"Johanna," Finnick urges, "tell them how boring sex is."

Annie can't help grinning as she hears Johanna say, "Oh, goodness, yes, I've done it a couple times, and it's really boring. You know, I have to read reports from work on the weekend—it's like my homework?—and I'd rather do the reports."

"It's more boring than homework, really?" Maggie sounds horrified.

"Okay, good save," Annie says, stepping out again briefly and craning her neck at Finnick, who gives her a proud thumbs-up before she disappears back into the kitchen. More than distracting the kids from sex, it's restored the good mood of earlier. Even Johanna seems relaxed.

"It's not that I want them to be ashamed," Annie defends herself to Cashmere and to a lesser extent to Beetee. "It's just that I don't want to overload them with information at their ages. It's too complicated to explain who you're allowed to fight with and have sex with and when and how and why."

"I know," says Cashmere. "You have a hard enough time explaining it to me."

Annie takes a deep breath, remembering just how true that is. "This way, by the time they're old enough to decide for themselves it's interesting after all, they won't remember this conversation at all. And maybe I should have a proper, age-appropriate talk with them before they spend any more time around Finnick and his sense of humor."

Beetee snorts.

"Hey, Maggie!" Annie calls as soon as it sounds like the living room has returned to civilization.

Maggie comes running. "Yes, Mama?"

"Do you have colored markers?"

"Yes, I do," she says happily. "I have all the colors."

"That's perfect. Can you bring out eight very different colors? I'm going to take a toothpick, color the top, and stick one in each pasty. Then everyone just has to remember what color they picked, and when we take the food out of the oven we'll be able to tell which pasty is whose."

Maggie brings the markers, proud to help, and Annie lets her color the toothpicks.

While she's coloring, Beetee walks her through some simple recipe adjustments. If three cups of sugar makes enough cookies for six people—"It's a math lesson, not a recipe," Beetee says to Annie's frown—how many cups for three people?

Maggie works through a few of these exercises, until she's finished coloring the toothpicks to her satisfaction.

"And now you've just used fractions to cook," Beetee tells her.

Maggie jumps up out of the chair. "Wow!" Running toward the living room, she calls, "Mum! I did fractions!"

"Like mother, like daughter." Beetee looks fondly at Annie.

"Yep, except I think she wants to escape before she's roped into cooking. I just have to wait until Evan gets a little older and see if I can find a willing victim to pass my recipes onto."

"Sometimes it skips a generation." Beetee smiles. "You can teach me some recipes while I'm here, and I'll teach you the science that goes with them. Seems I need to learn at least one seafood recipe."

Annie laughs. "Oh, so he doesn't cook, he just draws up the menu?"

Beetee's eyes grow tender. "You know, I can hire someone for whatever I need, and I do. But someone who's unfazed by all your scars and quirks, the time you spent thirty minutes enthusiastically describing your latest discovery before you realized you lost them around sentence two, the way everyone in public assumes they're hired help...I'll make the shrimp if he misses it."

Annie feels her chest tighten, remembering her first few years as a victor. "How do you think I ended up with Finnick? Unfazed is exactly it. You can have all my recipes."

* * *

With the skirmish behind them, Annie's beaming at everyone as she directs them into the kitchen for dinner.

"Beetee, where's the easiest spot for you to sit? Here? Rudder, you can sit next to him on the other side. Then Johanna, Finnick, Cashmere. And you kids between me and Mum." This puts Annie next to the stove, next to Beetee, and across the table from Finnick.

"Don't throw things at me while I eat," Finnick requests, straight-faced, as he sits down.

Equally deadpan, Rudder says, "I suppose I can exempt you for the day."

"More for your sake than mine," Finnick explains, all mischief. "I don't have reflexes any more. I have a Johanna."

"Don't poke the bear," Johanna advises, pulling up her own chair between them.

Rudder raises an eyebrow.

"Seriously, I delegated all that to her. No more reflexes."

"Self-preservation it is, then," Rudder decides, making Johanna laugh.

At dinner, Annie does her best to keep one eye on Finnick while keeping the conversation flowing. She's grateful that Johanna's there, putting food on his plate and elbowing him whenever he gets too lively. It's hard, because no one wants him subdued, but if he doesn't have an alternative to performing yet...she's just going to have to trust Johanna.

Just as she trusts her when Finnick's pasty sits untouched on his plate, and Johanna ignores it. Instead, she keeps a steady flow of stuffed tomatoes onto his plate, as he makes his way through one serving and then another. Sometimes bite-sized foods are easier for Finnick, which is why Annie always serves grape tomatoes these days, even if they're harder to stuff.

At least dinner is delightful, and Annie makes a conscious effort not to dominate the discussion with shop talk. She accepts the praises for her cooking with pleasure, and talks about food here and in Panem. "No cinnamon, but whoever was in charge of deciding what foods are most important understood that chocolate is a necessity. Thank goodness."

"And coffee," Johanna adds. "That was partly the free market at work: everyone will buy chocolate and coffee, so it's worth the cost of growing them locally. Bananas aren't as popular, sorry."

"Well, this is fantastic," Beetee says. "I do envy anyone who gets to eat your cooking on a regular basis. The pasty was amazing. I've never had anything like it."

Rudder nods. "Fills you right up. I hope you're stocked up: we'll be back."

"Come any time," Annie says. "I don't have the time to make everything fresh, but I try to make sure I cook at least one part of every meal myself."

"She gives me lunches to take to work," Johanna says, "and sends us home with leftovers from dinner. The only reason I don't weigh what she does is that I barely have time for a few bites between meetings most days."

"Well, that and you're not eating three people's desserts," Annie jokes. "Speaking of which, everyone ready? We have chocolate pudding, and peaches and cream."

"I want chocolate!" Maggie exclaims.

"Like mother, like daughter."

Annie turns to Beetee and says seriously, "Love of chocolate does not skip a generation."

"We'll take the rest home." Johanna gestures at Finnick's pasty, the only one left standing. "And what's left of the soup, if you don't mind." She peers at the pot. "Doesn't look like much from here."

"Please do."

Annie eats her chocolate, happier than she's been in a long time, and she beams under Finnick's appreciative gaze. "You still like watching me enjoy my food?" she murmurs.

"Always."

She licks her spoon for him, hoping that one day she can watch him enjoy food again.

* * *

Finnick heads straight to bed from the door, collapsing on the mattress with his clothes still on. Johanna's nails dig crescents into her palms, but she forces herself first to dump the leftovers in the mini fridge, pour a glass of water, and open the medical bag. If she doesn't administer his medication now, she'll forget after this conversation, and so will he.

He takes all the pills without complaint, and she rewards him by climbing immediately into bed beside him, dismissing the glass and everything else on the floor. His arms slide around her, and his large hands run up and down her back.

"Hey," Johanna says. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

"Just tired," Finnick assures her. "I'm fine."

"You're such a good actor no one can ever tell when to believe you, but I think I've heard that line before."

"As far as I know," and his voice quavers a little in hurt protest, "I'm just tired. I'm glad to see Rudder, and I wanted to surprise Annie."

"All right." Johanna shifts around and tries a few positions, until she ends up lying on her back. Then she pulls him over her so he's got his head on her shoulder. "C'mere." Now it's her turn with her hand rubbing his back, up and down, stroke and soothe. "Listen, you have two options. I can list off every single thing you've ever accomplished or sacrificed, or you can stop making guilty comments about what Annie and I spend on your care. And I'm not just talking about money. You're a fucking war hero, so knock it off, all right?"

"It's not guilt, exactly."

At least he's not denying that something is off. It's a start.

"What is it, then?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. It's part of why I need a mentor here."

"All right." Johanna's still wrestling with the notion that she can't solve all Finnick's problems herself. In a way, it's a relief, because that is a lot of pressure, and she can see why he doesn't want to be in the reverse position of having to meet all her needs. But it still stings that he deteriorated fast living alone with her, and only started wanting to live again on _Annie's_ couch.

"Meanwhile, thank you for not pushing me at dinner."

"Too many guests?" Johanna hadn't wanted to draw attention to his difficulties, so she quietly gave him food and didn't say anything about eating it.

"Not Rudder so much as Beetee. You saw, he was on me about the shrimp, and later I noticed some curious looks when you were handling my food. But Rudder too; it's hard not to remember the academy."

"You don't have to explain anything to anyone. I never asked why you don't like seafood, and you didn't have to tell him."

"I know, but even so, I still haven't figured out how to interact with people who aren't you or Cashmere, and trying to eat at the same time was just too much. I was braced for combat all evening. Thank you."

"Finnick, you do know that the reason we agreed that I put food on your plate and you clean it is because you said it makes your life easier? Not because those are the expectations and you have to meet them."

Finnick's silent for a while. "You know, I think I'd forgotten that? I thought the goal was for me to eat healthy."

"Pretty sure the goal is to keep the Capitol from being able to torture you at every meal."

"It's not so much the prostitution-"

Johanna interrupts, "It's the fucking lives depending on what kind of shape your body's in. You were a warrior and a sex symbol."

"Yes," Finnick admits. "If it's not about that any more, and it's just you and me...maybe I can finish dinner now? Or try, anyway."

"You don't have to finish it. If you don't, I will. But you can start it at least. 'S delicious."

Johanna warms it up on the hot plate, and brings it back to him in bed.

"Mags never let me eat in bed," Finnick comments, as he accepts his pasty. "Wow, this is delicious. Why did no one tell me?"

Johanna chokes. "I'm going to tell Annie you said that."

"I'm going to tell Annie I said that! Mmm, rosemary and turnip and everything. I should eat more Annie food."

She laughs. "No arguments here. Does this mean I'm forgiven for the fiasco?" He's not the only one who's been braced for combat all evening, and she's never been a fan of putting things off.

"Please never upset Annie like that again. It doesn't even matter how kind she's been to both of us. There are simply things I can't live with, and that's one of them. I mean that very literally. I will go back to Seven. I won't even stay and argue."

"I know." There are very few threats that could have shut her up that quickly, but Finnick giving up his family and his medical treatment to go die in the mountains protecting Annie is one of them. She never questions for a minute that he would do it. "But we're good?"

"If you say it won't happen again, then I believe you. I'm not going to keep fighting the same battle again and again."

Slowly, Johanna leans back against the pillow beside him, willing herself to believe it. If there's one person who could ruin everything by opening her big mouth once, it would be her. "Not even the Quarter Quell?" she teases. "We agreed you'd win."

"Oh, I'd win," he says. "And I don't mind reliving it with you. Just never in front of Annie. Everything we called her madness after she won was not being able to stop reliving it. You want to break her down to where she was then, keep telling her about how you would have killed Cashmere. You wanna relive it with me, though, sure. I don't know who's second, that's not up to me, but you'd have been third."

Johanna sighs and mutters, "I'm not convinced-"

"You've had all evening. You come up with any winning strategies? Do tell."

She grumbles, remembering the scenario he'd presented her with. _It's the endgame. You, me, and Mags. What exactly are you doing that gets you into second place?_

"I still think traps-"

"Traps that Mags and I would both miss? At this point, you're lucky if you haven't tripped over any of my vines."

"Third," Johanna concedes.

"Third is still dead, just like second," Finnick points out. "You know, most victors don't want to refight their Games."

"Most victors don't have anything to prove," Johanna defends. "They were either Careers who got encouragement all along, or they're outliers who don't want to be treated like a Career. All I ever wanted was to be taken seriously."

"I take you seriously," Finnick says evenly. "Rudder takes you seriously. Annie takes you seriously. Pretty sure Cashmere couldn't do anything else. Beetee made one remark. You want to rip out his jugular in return, go for it. We're just asking you not to annihilate innocent bystanders, leave a smoking rubble where they stood, and salt the earth when you're done."

Chuckling in spite of herself, Johanna digs the point of her chin into his shoulder. "Fine." Though she won't admit it, she's secretly glad it blew over as quickly as it did, because she wasn't trying to hurt Annie, just thoughtless. She changes the subject. "Busy day tomorrow?"

"Yeah...oh, shit. You have work tomorrow, don't you?"

Johanna's eyebrows fly upward. "I thought you were arranging time alone with him."

Finnick growls in unhappy impatience with himself, interrupting Johanna's frantic train of thought on whether she can take yet another day off when she's already well into unpaid time, and she can't believe she hasn't been fired yet, throwing around the phrases "war hero" and "terminally ill" at her boss or no.

"Oh, come on," Johanna says, because biting back her own impatience is easier when she's arguing with someone, "happens to everyone. You lost track of what day it was, so what?"

"But I used to be able to carry a complicated schedule around in my head alongside a vast hoard of other information and never screw up, because lives were depending on it."

"Well, no one's life is depending on this. And you never had anyone to catch you if you fell before, did you? You were alone when you were working the Capitol."

"I was." Finnick sighs quietly. "In the evening, then. Rudder and Beetee'll probably need the day to hunt down doctors anyway. It'll work."

"You know how to reach me if you change your mind," she reminds him, and he nods. He won't, and he knows she knows he won't, but some things need to be said out loud anyway.

* * *

They end up getting to use Annie's couch for the conversation. Instead of dropping Finnick back off at his place, Cashmere picks up Johanna there, drops her off at the house, collects the kids, and goes out for an evening with Annie. "We're going to a lumber store," she explains, "seeing as how someone needs to build a ramp. Then we're meeting Beetee at the science museum, and he's going to treat us to a lecture. Annie tells me they've got stuff to entertain kids, and that he's an entertaining lecturer anyway."

"Wow, Annie going out for fun?" Finnick smiles broadly. "Give her my love, sweetheart."

Finnick did consider having Annie here for this conversation, because she knew Mags too, but they've been over this a million times. He already knows what she thinks.

Johanna for moral support. Rudder because Finnick badly needs a mentor, and right now, one willing to criticize Mags.

Once they have the house to themselves, Johanna gets them situated. Finnick in his now-usual lengthwise position in the middle, legs over the far arm. Rudder behind him, sitting like a normal person with his feet on the floor. If Finnick leans back, just a little... _Like a mainmast. And Johanna as my anchor._

Rudder keeps his shoulder firmly in place, rock solid against Finnick's back. Johanna's sitting on the floor at the base of the couch, where she sat so many times when he needed her. All he has to do is reach out his hand to hold onto her, and she's like Mags: she may be small, but she has a towering presence all out of proportion to her size.

Finnick takes a deep breath and gears himself up.

He starts with a summary of the last few years. His exhaustion. Showing up here to see if Annie and Cashmere had any last problems for him to solve, then heading off to die when they didn't.

"I started falling apart physically and mentally so insidiously I still don't know which parts were which. Not being able to breathe took away all my energy, but I didn't fight it because I couldn't bear to pick up where I left off, sacrificing everything to fix Panem. It literally never occurred to me that I could get my lungs fixed and do something less...all-consuming."

Rudder's still but not aloof, listening. There.

"Now I think I might like to, but I don't know what or how. I don't have any other goals in mind, and if I ever do think of one, I'm terrified that it'll get out of control like the last time. I don't know if I could get back into shape now, I don't know if I want to, and I don't know what I'd do with it if I did."

An unexpected chill runs down his spine as it strikes him that it's Rudder he's confessing these things to. _If I'm not an athlete, am I throwing your teaching back in your face and spitting on it?_

Tightening his grip on Johanna's shoulder, Finnick conquers his fear and carries on.

"The only way I know how to do this is the way Mags did it. You don't let your feelings interfere with the mission, and you keep going until you don't have anything left to give. How do you justify a life that feels like giving up on everything that mattered to you? Why do I feel like I have to justify my life when no one else does?"

 _You were right, she used people, she used me, I don't know how to be anything but what she made me...Help._

Winding down, Finnick finally asks the question that he's been steeling himself to ask, the question he called Rudder halfway around the world to answer. "Do you think Mags would be all right with me being out of the action? Indefinitely? I know it shouldn't matter," he adds hastily, "I should just carry on without worrying about what she'd think, and I'll try, but...I never got out of the habit of seeing my life as though I'm on screen, with her watching, and knowing we'll go over my performance when I'm done."

Rudder is silent a long time, for which Finnick is grateful. He won't say _yes, of course_ , just to make Finnick feel better. Finnick's braced for anything, including _Grow up and stop giving a shit what she would think. She was obviously no damn good for you._

"I think..." Rudder says slowly, "...that with the war over, she'd be just as much at a loss as you."

Then he waits, while Finnick mulls that over.

Maybe. Her whole life was putting kids in the arena and planning a revolution; what makes Finnick think she'd have any better idea than he does what to do when it was all over?

Maybe it's better to think of Mags, not as someone all-knowing, all-wise, and qualified to be the final say on his life choices, nor as someone who saw him only as a weapon to be discarded when he broke or wasn't needed any more, but as someone imperfect. Incomplete, like him.

Out of the past comes a memory of talking with Mags. He was only fourteen, and she'd been watching him on screen in the arena.

 _"When you were in pain, I was in pain. When you were triumphant, I was triumphant."_

 _"When I was kicking ass-" Finnick grinned._

 _"Thank you for that. I've never had that experience before."_

Finnick looks up, as though he can find the camera that's broadcasting him to whatever screen she's watching.

 _Well, I'm resting now, Mags. New experience for both of us. Then I'm going to figure out what's next._

* * *

[A/N]: Well, this is it. That's all she wrote.

I do have a lot of ideas and some drafts for things that happen later, but the odds of me getting them into postable form are not in our favor. What I may do, if inspiration strikes, is write an epilogue summarizing what I know of where Finnick goes from here. Some of them are fun, and I wish I could write a part 2 (I even have a few ideas for a part 3, omg), but...I gave up almost everything else in my life for 3 years to write this, and it may be time to move on.

At any rate, it's been a long, but rewarding journey. Everyone who made it this far, thank you for reading! Favorites and comments are treasured more than you know.


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